Chrestomathy
by after.a.hard.day
Summary: /after.a.hard.day's Naruto misc fanfics./ 15. Ten Genre GaaSaku, many flavours, because its more fun to roll like that. /Rated M
1. Truthful Monster, Naru

Truthful Monster

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Disclaim ownership of source material.

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Erm. Trying to get my writing muse going again. Introspective of Naruto + Kyuubi. Enjoy.

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_You gotta let me go  
Are we human or are we denser?  
My sign is vital, my hands are cold  
And I'm on my knees looking for the answer  
Are we human or are we denser?_

Human, The Killers.

--

(_Rip. Tear. Bleed.)_

His teeth bared and he breathed heavily through them.

He flexed his claw tipped fingers.

(_Rip. Tear. Bleed.)_

At one point the was something else, someone else. I different kind of monster. Monster of social conventions. Now he was everything else that defined monster.

Now he was malice. Now he was pain. Now he was covered in blood. Could feel under those powerful claws, down the back of his throat. Could taste it when he breathed. Felt its sickly texture but did not abhor it.

(_Rip. Tear. Bleed.)_

No, not abhor anymore, revelled in it, because this_ this_ was true life. The world burned brighter under his eyes. He was ruler, he was to be respect. He was power. Life and death was in his _handspawsclaws_. He pulled his head back and let out a vicious sound. _They would pay for it all, he was not to be imprisoned_.

But he wasn't to be imprisoned.

Because he wasn't imprisoned. He was him. Him was free and free was now with the fear and the hate for once justified.

(Rip. Tear. Bleed.)

They would _die_ those that had rejected him. Turned him away. Because they called him monster.

They called him that not knowing, never knowing.

(_That they were speaking the truth_)

That he was far more than that.

Because he could make them suffer. Make them know what it was like inside.

(Truth)

(bleeds)

(red)

He. He was he. He was not anything else. It was separate and different and powerful.

(He)

_Monster_.

(would)

(_tear_)

(the)

(truth)

_Bleeding truth. Hot truth. Nothing cold about it. Truth burned._

(out)

(of)

(their mouths)

They would know, know and see, that he was just like them.

_A monster_.

A monster of their truths. A monster created by monsters.

Created by them.

Just like them.

After he extracted the truth from them.

(He would rip it back into them)

(_Rip. Tear. Bleed_)

--

End.

--

Hope you enjoyed. The insanity of a monster is defined by society. I can imagine the Kyuubi being manipulative. Twisting, like Shukaku did to Gaara, to make them pay for what they did to him. Calling him monster when they had no idea of the truth. The snap back of _yes_ _I am monster, but you had no idea at the time of how much_. That they made him into the monster by shunning him. That everyone can turn into a monster by doing so.

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After.a.hard.day


	2. Eighty Punches, Team 7

Eighty Punches

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Disclaim ownership of source material.

Hrmhrmhrm, nice cute little cliché going on here. So This is AU in the sense that Sasuke is there. Set when they are about 16. I never explain it, but when I came up with this, Sakura was on a mission that had forced her to be drained of chakra for quiet some time that forces it to splurge randomly. Though this really has no significance.

Team 7 being Team 7 and sticking together, giving each other support… sorta. ;)

Mature Themes people. And swearing. A lot of swearing.

OOC? Most definitely. Crack? Most would call it that. Fluffy? I tried. Grammatically screwed? I KNOW AND I'M SORRY.

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Music: Kelly - Van She. A-Punk - Vampire Weekend.

--

They knew something was up. It was obvious. So bloody obvious. Her fingers were twitching too badly, her face turning from angry to fake smile within seconds, it left them all to blink incredibly confused.

Kakashi angsted, Sasuke angsted, Naruto, upon occasion, was noted on occasion for doing it too.

But Sakura.

_Sakura smiled_.

Right now, her smile was like chipped plaster on mouldy rooves. You just wanted to sand it off and remake paint it. Because anything had to be better than _that_.

They were all aware of it, because she was so damnably easy to read to them.

Kakashi wearily gave their mission (D-class because Sasuke and Naruto were running away too much and giving them lower missions would most definitely _stop them_) eyeing her shifting angry stance.

At first Sasuke tried to put it down to 'that-time-of-the-month' except when he looked at Naruto and gestured, Naruto shook his head, she didn't smell of blood.

The task was simple, pulled river weeds out. It involved slopping around in half muddy water, ripping out the weeds and occasional bits of rubbish.

In Sakura's half-rage and half-formed strength, mud went flying when her strength would kick in.

After she ripped said helpless weed across the river, smacking into a tree (to which it should be noted, if the plant could scream, it would have been its whole ride through the air) above Kakashi's so hard it left a dint, they decided something had to give.

"Sakura-chan..." Naruto gave a glance to the other two members who encouraged him to keep going. _Send me in as front line, bastards. _

"_What?_" Her teeth grinding could almost be heard.

"Sakura, there's something wrong…"

She stopped moving, half bent over, fingers gripped around some very helpless looking water weed.

They sickening sweet voice was back. "I'm fine guys, don't worry about it. Just cramps."

"Sakura - uh, you had that last week…" Naruto tried to be gentle, really, but how else was he going to put it?

The fake dropped.

"_Just forget it_, alright?"

At least she was being truthful now.

"No. You are acting irrationally and if you haven't noticed, you are almost crushed Kakashi's skull with that last one." Sasuke stared hard at her and Naruto cringed, _not good, not good_.

She turned around, possibly the ugliest sneer he had ever seen in his whole life on her face.

"Pity it didn't hit _you_."

_Oh shit, not good, really not good, eject! Eject! Now!_

"Sakura…" Kakashi warned.

"Oh, _what_? _Naruto _and _Sasuke _are allowed to rip at each other, insult each other, goddamn try to kill each other, _but I__'__m not_?! Where is the fairness in that?!"

"Sakura, why don't you just - "

"Just tell you what's wrong? No. Between dragging _his_ scrawny and rather attractive ass back from Sound Land, Naruto's Kyuubi fits and your stupid masked angst, I can keep my fucking own secrets."

Collective blink.

"_Sakura__…_"

"…Is that what this is really about?"

She stared, then started laughing. "What that? _No_! God, I've been in this team for eight years, as if I wasn't goddamn used to it now, what sort of team member would I be? God, the world doesn't revolve around you!"

"… are you Ino?"

"No!"

"_Sakura_! Stop acting like an idiot."

"_No! Fuck off! Like you fucking know fucking anything you total fuck head! You don__'__t know a fucking thing!_"

The shock was so immense that even the river went silent, possibly small animals and children ran away.

But Sakura wasn't done.

"Like you have any fucking idea! How could you?! Fucking men, you are all the fucking same, _oh Sakura-chan can you heal me up_? Fucking men - that's exactly it, your all fucking obsessed with fucking!"

They just listened because obviously she wasn't going to stop any time soon.

"And then - then I find _someone_ who I think cares, not just to get into my pants, nice good civilian boy. How stupid am I? Thinking he's decent, start dating him."

Blink. Blinkblink. Sakura? Dating? _Huh?!_

"Then - then! He fucking _dumps me_, when I wont sleep with him! So what if I gave him head once or twice, doesn't mean I'm ready for him to get into my _pants_."

Some third degree of shock is setting in.

"Then the fucker, after I say no, has the audacity to SHOVE HIS FUCKING HAND DOWN MY FUCKING PANTIES WHEN I TELL HIM NO. Fucking forget _I__'__m __ninja__!_"

None of them are thinking straight. Head? Sakura-chan? Little pink-haired Sakura-chan? Panties? _Some assholes hands down her panties?_

"So _you_, fuckheads, the whole fucking world doesn't revolve around _you_, so lets hurry this up so I can go home and punch the shit out of …something."

She turned back around and continued ripping out weeds, marginally calmer then before.

"…Sakura?" Sasuke said carefully.

"Yes?" no more killing rage, just exasperated.

"…You gave him head?" Naruto might have been leering but she wasn't going to look.

She stopped pulling the weeds. "Eh - yes."

"…how many times?"

"Does this really have anything to do with anything?"

"…Just answer the question." Sasuke always had that tone when he wasn't mucking around.

"Urgh! Pervert! Fine… five times."

"Right so five times by the number of times you just said 'fuck' would be, what Kakashi?"

"Eighty, roughly. I may have lost count."

"Okay, Sakura, Ino'll know this guys name?"

"Yes, she met him once or twice. And well, girl talk and stuff." They knew her well enough that she blushing.

"Right."

The same thought were going over and over in all their brains.

_Killkillkillkillkillkillkill_.

No one. Absolutely _no one_ made Sakura swear like that, be hurt so much like that…

… and some civilian was certainly not good enough to get head from Sakura.

Eighty. That was how many times that fucker was going to get kicked in the face. By each of them.

Naruto nodded to himself, that idiot was going to fucking _die_. Sasuke had good ideas sometimes.

But that was later, because it seemed that now that her anger was gone, Sakura was sobbing, quietly, and they knew she was ashamed of it. She always was when she cried.

"I'm such a fucking weakling…"

…she really needed to stop swearing. Sakura-chan wasn't meant to swear so much. She was mumbling to herself, but they were ninja's, they could hear every word.

"_So fucking scared of sex, shouldn't be. Fuckety fuck fuck. Kunoichi, shouldn't be, it's my job."_

Naruto always hated when she said things like that.

"_Yeah - you remember that mission? Nearly lost it then - god its just a fucking piece of sentimentality, get over it already. Ninja's don't have sentiments."_

They didn't like _that mission_ which had left Sakura jumping from their touches, their proximity. Her struggling in training seemed so desperate in a way that it never had before. Her uncomfortableness had been all of theirs, especially when on missions that would occasionally here her scream and cry in her sleep, or in training when one of them had her a in a lock, her mind would blank and her screams of 'Get off me!' were somehow so akin to a wailing half captured animal.

Nor was it very nice when she talked to herself like that, completely unaware of them. But there wasn't really much any of them could say. Because as if they could really understand. They knew sex was supposed to hurt the first time for a girl - knowing all this didn't help though. Because on top of all these, girls put so much importance on _it_ for the first time.

"…_but if I am going through that kinda pain, like - like - yeah - then it isn__'__t going to be for someone I don__'__t love or care about a lot_… Stupid boys, give 'em head and they think you are their blow up doll." she said that louder and Naruto snorted.

He would have been glad that she was joking about it, only problem was she was still sobbing occasionally between the words.

"Sakura-chan, what'll it take you to feel better again?"

She pouted, he looked at her side ways to see her bite her lip.

Then she sighed. "Just remember that I am more likely hit you than normal, because right now… men are just pigs."

"So just don't say anything to stir you up?"

"You always stir me up Naruto, but just so long as you know that I'll probably hit you just a little harder than normal."

"With chakra?"

"No, not with chakra… it wont be intentional if it happens…?" that tiny little sheepish grin on tear strained cheeks made some sort of difference.

"Sakura," that was Kakashi somewhere to the side, on the bank. "Why didn't you tell us you were dating? If you had then there wouldn't have been this mess in the mission."

"… because… I… goddamn it you all scare them away, its hard enough for them, knowing I could crush their hand, but then you three loom like some sort of stupid father/brother figure. And - and - urgh - I need to touch someone like that sometimes too, selfish pricks."

"Yeah - but a civilian?" Naruto whined.

"He was from out of town, and who cares? He was a good kisser. So shut it. I didn't expect it to last as long as it did."

"Anything else we should know about this relationship?"

"Hrm, that its none of your business?"

"Sakura-chan…"

"No! Get lost! I am going to go home after this and dwell on my loneliness at the bottom of a ice-cream carton and repetitious watching's of _The Princess Bride_."

"But Sakura-chaaaan…!"

"No, SHUT UP!" she slammed her hands on the water a the ripple that went out turned into a tidal wave somewhere down stream. "Did you think - just for a second - maybe, just goddamn _maybe_, this is painful for me to talk and think about? Maybe I had a little bit of attachment in the bastard, and thought maybe he would understand? He said he did, said he cared, and that we could go slow and…" she pressed her palms to her eyes and tilted her head back to stop the tears.

_Fucker is dead. Dead. D-E-A-D. With extra KILLING_.

"Sakura, he's just some stupid boy…" Sasuke was looking at her again. Naruto knew Sakura couldn't hear it, but the _who will pay_ was loud and clear to Kakashi and himself.

"Yeah, stupid boy, just like you were. Stupid, stupid Sakura, _never_ knows how to pick her men, _always_ picks the emotional wrecked ones., with their stupid 'love-me-but-don't' complexes. Urgh."

"…emotional wrecked?" Sasuke blinked.

"Yeah, oh shut up. You are." she splashed water at him. It was really disgusting, half muddy water everywhere.

"Ew, Sakura-chan." Naruto wiped a particularly large blob of mud off his cheek.

"I'm not going to pretend I'm sorry," she poked her tongue out.

"Fine!" Naruto launched at her, Sakura squealed and jumped out of the way, only to hit Sasuke, looking not so menacing with a piece of weed hanging in his hair and a rather dead-pan expression on his face.

"…You got mud in my hair."

"I… I'm sorry…"

He jumped at her, grabbing her by her shoulders to drag her into the dirty waters.

She immerged half spluttering, glaring at Sasuke who was kneeling with that stupid cocky smirk on his face. Naruto was standing behind him grinning like an idiot.

"YOU TWO ARE SO DEAD!"

She screamed and launched herself at them. Two against one though, she ended up slung over Naruto's shoulder, bashing his back with her fists. Eventually she realised nothing was effecting him and slumped.

"I still really hate you both."

"We know"

Kakashi smiled. They were covered in mud, half the weeds they had been removing over them. But what the male members of Team Seven noted more importantly, the despite being the most wrecked one:

_Sakura smiled. _

--

A certain man was also was never able to have children.

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End

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Hope it was slightly squee worthy. I'm not a very good fluff writer, but I wanted to write some Team 7 cuteness. I tried anyways, I suppose?

Also spawned because I wanted to swear a great deal.

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After.a.hard.day


	3. Of Gold, SasuSaku

Of Gold

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Disclaim ownership of source material.

ITS COMPLETELY SHAMELESS FLUFF. NO, SERIOUSLY. No plot. Just Fluff and a lot of warm memories that aren't mine. I am not sure I like it, I fumbled it a little. But I like it. Warm lazy kisses would feel nice right about now.

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Music: Fields of Gold - (version by: ) Sting. (duh)

--

It was some sort of memory, not completely real and not completely his imagination. But it was soft edges and uncompleted sighs, which was enough (_because the sun and the sky watched over_). He strode forward, hands running over the waist high barley. It shone gold in the light. He heard giggling so he kept walking until he came upon the source of the sound.

There Sakura sat on the rug, a basket near her. She looked up at him over her shoulder, pressed her fingers to her lips, hiding her giggle underneath it. She removed her hand and she saw her wine stained lips turn up at the corner before she ducked her head again (_the smile that only he, the sun and sky would see_).

Faster than expected for such a lethargic place, she jumped up and ran forward, he began to chase, watching her hair fly from its ornate bun with tiny sparkling clips. The wind moved the barley, a soft sigh across the plain as it moved like a sheet of gold (_reflected from the torch the sun and its torch bearer the sky_).

She waited for him. He came closer, reaching for her hand, but she danced back, till he became frustrated and tackled her (_as she screamed laughter, high to only others listening_) into the ground, the barley parting for them to lay. As he landed, Sakura twisted herself so she was above him. Her hands braced on his shoulders, his around her waist, their legs locked. Quiet hesitantly, she leant forward and brushed her lips to his. She giggled again and repeated the action. Hesitant became sure and he rolled them over so to press himself against her.

She pulled away for a moment sitting up, with him still half crouching over her. Her hands ran over his face, across his eyelids, touching his lips, to which he pressed the tip of his tongue against them, thus causing another giggle. Once she finished touch-learning his face, her hands pulled away and first went to remove her vest, then to hair and remove all the hair ornaments to place them on her vest.

Her hair came down, longer than he remember it being, but shorter than when it was at its longest. Her fingers came to his face and he felt her leg slide up his. She kissed him more forcefully this time, which he returned just the same, sinking back into the field of barely (_for she was the sun and the sky_).

They forgot whatever they where, to be this (_the sun, the sky_), all he knew was that her body would rise against his with those soft moans, that her lips tasted of wine and golden summer.

A lovers sigh and the memory that was not quiet a memory shattered. Sasuke woke to white walls and uncompleted soft edges, the taste of gold (_of the sun and of the sky_) in his mind.

--

After.a.hard.day


	4. Line of Duty, Saku

Line of Duty.

--

The 'mission' mentioned in _Eighty Punches_. Or at least, the prequel to it. I LIKE WRITING RANDOM CLICHES, MKAY?

Mkay. Enjoy. Its just one scene that is about wonderful wonderful Saku!CharDevelopment!

sidenote - dont ask me where the fuck Sai is...

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Music: Shipping Up To Boston - Dropkick Murpheys.

--

"I understand Tsunade-sama" Sakura bowed.

"And Sakura,"

"Yes Tsunade-sama"

"Do what you… have to, to prepare."

"Yes Tsunade-sama" She turned out of the room, head firmly set towards the floor and away from the apprehensive eyes of her team mates.

Every Kunoichi get a mission like this. She just had to suck it up, _suck it up suck it up suck it up_.

"Sakura-ch - "

"Lets go get ramen, Naruto." She latched onto his wrist and dragged him behind her.

_Don't say it, don't say it_.

Naruto cast a folorn look over his shoulder to his three equally troubled team mates.

It was easy to forget that Sakura was female sometimes with female duties. That she might get called for something like this.

She sat in the middle of them, Naruto and Yamato on one side and Sasuke and Kakashi. She spoke loudly, ate too fast and pretended that she couldn't see the look on their faces. That absolute sadness.

The conversation lulled as Sakura felt the fake energy seep out of her.

"Sakura-chan…"

"No, stop it, I wont let you, I can't let you, I'm ninja. Female ninja. I've got to do this. Its my duty and I would be weak to complain, so just _don't_." She gripped the sides of the bowl with tight fingers.

"Its your duty Sakura, but you don't have to pretend it isn't happening." Kakashi

"Yes I do, because if I stop for a second, and realise that I am going to be touched _like that, that I will_... I'll fall apart. So just _don't_."

The silence was horrible. Sakura bowed her head and asked for another bowl.

--

End.

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after.a.hard.day

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	5. Human Power, Team 7

_Human Power_

_--_

_Disclaim ownership_.

Side-note - I am a very strong human rights activist. I watched his video on TED www .ted. com / index .php / talks / james_nachtwey_s_searing_pictures_of war .html (remove spacing) and I had to write, if nothing else to show how it impacts me. Watch the video should you wish to have your eyes opened. This is not based entirely off fiction. This is Naruto characters telling the real world.

--

"_Oh my god."_

Kakashi stood behind Naruto, silently echoing the sentiment.

The report had been of a attack on the civilian village.

_Attack_,

Not _massacre_.

Before them was carnage of the purest form. The ground on which they walked was red with dried blood. In the cobbled pathways it had congealed in the cracks.

"W-what - "

"This, Naruto, is why Ninja should not exist." Kakashi said, pushing past him and began the long task of checking for survivors. _No human should have this power over others._

Sasuke came to a locked door, he heard something scuttle on the other side. He kicked the door in, a child began screaming. He surged forward, looking for the source. There the child - girl, it was a girl - trapped in its mothers dead arms. A cut running down her face. Sasuke came forward and shushed the child with soft chakra laced fingers, not knocking it up but sending it into false calm. He picked the child up, the tiny girl wrapped her arms around his neck, eyes wide and dazed. Sasuke could sympathise.

He found the rest of the team, Sakura was over a body, her hands buzzed and he could see the energy she was pouring out of her.

"Damn it no! No come on come on!" Sakura was pushing it out all to fast.

Kakashi braced a hand on her shoulder. "Sakura, just let him go. This is war, this is ninja, don't die when you can fight to fix it."

They all looked around the covering of half bloated bodies, smelt the death that now clung to their skin.

Before they left, Sasuke cast his family jutsu, obliterating it all to a set of scorch marks and burning embers, it was a hateful day to be a ninja.

--

end

--

After..day


	6. Feeling The Red Light, SasuSaku

_Feeling The Red Light._

_--_

_Disclaim ownership of source material._

_To Agent-Kuma Chan, who I said I would write this for because she picked up a reference in one of my stories. Twenty gold rubuls to her. Yeah whatevs, I can't even remember where rubuls come from. Love-ya darling. _

_--_

Right so this is something I want to explore later, and I have rough fic ideas lying dormant for it in my brain. But. It's a non-massacre AU. However, much, much, much different. The Uchiha's were planning a rebellion weren't they? This is set after the rebellion happened, and they rose up, to get beaten back down again. So now the Uchiha's are still in Konoha, beaten down and a 'taboo' clan. So, the only people still alive are the lesser families, Itachi (who worked as a double agent) Sasuke (because he was all of seven years old when this went down, therefore obviously had nothing to do with it) and their mother (who had nothing to do with it, apparently -shifty- alright so it isn't very well thought out). If I ever get around to writing this properly, I would be exploring all aspect, but as it is, Kuma requested SasuSaku, so I will be looking at their romance particularly. Mature themes of both sexuality and violence.

--

-

-

-

_I just don't wanna be lonely  
__Cause the lights, were shining ever so bright  
In my hand there's a pulse of my beating heart _

…

_Can you see the bright light?  
Shining, I dont know  
Is it a reflection of anyone? The big glow  
And tell me this is all good, and you say,  
I dont know I'm very very far from home. _

-

-

-

-

--

"There's music in the air, can you hear it? There's a beat to your heart, a tune in your steps."

He could never hear it, it seemed.

--

--

He was twelve when he heard her speak for the first time, he had seen her many times already. But when he had heard her in the background of the class room tell Ino that it didn't matter (about something), he turned around and there she was, glaring her blond friend and she half caught his eye.

They had been talking about him.

She smiled.

He supposed her voice was kind of high and (annoying) grating to his ears, but it wasn't something all together unpleasant.

When he caught her singing, it sounded soft.

--

--

When he was put in the same team as her and the (more than him) village reject. He just suppressed rolling his eyes and hid behind his clasped hands.

_What are your goals, your ambitions?_

She prattled off something about being better than her blond friend.

He just stared down and said that he wished to renew his families honour.

He didn't want to look up at his new sensei, because that man _knew_.

He didn't want to see that same look that he had gotten so many before.

Eventually he did look up at the man as it was inevitable, the first time he looked up at him, and really looked Kakashi in the eyes (eye?) the cold precision in his face cheered Sasuke greatly.

--

--

At times Itachi would walk him home from the academy, put a arm over his shoulder and they would just stroll back to the mostly empty Uchiha district.

When he had become part of the genin team, Itachi did the strange thing of inviting over Sasuke's team. Sakura had turned pale and looked around her, he knew what she was thinking.

The dead-last had got a big grin and said 'why not?'

Itachi seemed particularly keen on knowing Naruto. 'Interest only'.

Sasuke didn't want either of them in his house, he didn't want them to know his humanity. It was just easier that way.

He didn't admit because he liked the soft look in her eye when she watched from the corners. To ruin that image in her mind would be to ruin himself.

And what was he if not constructed by others?

They came anyway, Sakura hesitant and kept her head down.

--

--

One morning Naruto, Sasuke and Kakashi all stood waiting, after they had returned from the land of waves and the cold imprint of Haku and Zabuza's death had gripped their hearts and made some sort of unbreakable bond, but there was no Sakura. Figuring that she had just been running late, they went to her apart, in the not-good but not-bad part of town.

They stopped when they heard the screaming from outside.

"_They put you in a team with _those two_!_"

Silence.

"_I don't care! We are getting you moved! This morning! As soon as I possibly can!_"

It was her father by the sound of it. She had vaguely alluded once that he was ninja.

Sakura's voice was heard then, words indistinct.

"_What?!_"

"I SAID: I'M NOT MOVING!"

The door opened, she was obviously not fully ready for the day, her headband was grasped tight in one hand, her pack of weapons grasped in the other instead of being strapped on, her teeth grit with hard breath coming between them. She had not seen them.

"Haruno Sakura! Get back here now!"

"NO! I DON'T WANNA TALK TO YOU! YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND!" She yelled from her door way. They watched her slam it behind her, let out a long breath leaning her head against the wood. Still un-noticing she fixed her self up, tied her weapons pack and head band on. She turned.

They stared at her.

It might have been with pride, or maybe thanks even perhaps love, but it was something that caused those tears she was so prone to spring to her eyes.

"Let's… go." Her voice cracked and she went to them. Kakashi ruffled her hair, Naruto slung an arm around her shoulder and Sasuke nodded. Together they walked off.

_I'm not leaving you_.

--

--

"Sasuke-kun, are you alright?"

"Hn."

Sigh. "Sasuke-kun, that's not an answer."

"Hn."

She sat down next to him. "Is it your mother again?"

"Hn."

"You know, there is things you can do to help… people to see?"

"Who would help us Sakura? Who actually would? We are outcasts. You made yourself one to by refusing to disassociate from us."

"It doesn't matter about me."

"It does!" he snarled. Baring his teeth in a angry look. "It will _always_ matter, because you were _decent_. You were a good girl from a not _important _but _respected _clan, now you - you - and you still want to help!"

"Yes I do, this is the only way I can, not until I - "

"Until what?"

"Kakashi says I can't get the training I need in Konoha."

She didn't need to say anymore.

"Where and when?"

"I am going to the sannin Tsunade. She is a good friend of Jariya-san apparently, Kakashi, the third and Jariya all agree that she is the best to learn from with my perfect chakra control. Jariya is writing a letter of recommendation for me. If I prove myself I'll be taken in, and be back in a few years, or at least when my training is done."

It went unspoken that she was the only one that would work with Naruto and Sasuke, but she was also the weak spot, and because of their close-knit nature, _there could be no weak spot_. It was already decided Naruto was going training with Jariya, and Sasuke himself would be tutored under Itachi (the greatest sharingan user after Madara undoubtedly) and Kakashi. They were legends in making, they all knew it. Somehow it didn't matter.

"When do you leave?"

She choked hard and he knew she was going to cry again. She always cried, sometimes it was like she was crying for him.

"Day after tomorrow."

He nodded.

"But I wont be really gone, Sasuke. None of us really will."

"Hn."

"Cause…" she took his hand from where it rested on the ground and pressed it to her chest, subliminally he registered the way her breast was just beginning to swell. "There's music in the air, can you hear it? There's a beat to your heart, a tune in your steps."

His face was that stone look when he was trying to process something that was greatly important to him.

"it's the same no matter where you are. So if you listen to it, its like we are never apart. Understand?"

He didn't. But he knew she was saying it for her own good, not his.

--

--

The years passed slowly. It was just after Sasuke's fifteenth birthday that his dreams started, they left him sweating and panting in the morning.

Sakura's moans, the ones he had only heard when she had eaten something she liked, echoed around his head. He knew what was happening, it didn't make sense. He knew Sakura from when she was _twelve_ and _just thirteen_. Her hips did not flair like that, her lips did not pout like that and her voice did not gasp his name like that. (Apparently his imagination made up the years easily). And he most _certainly_ did not want to kiss up her neck, stopping just under her ear so he could hear that -

_Beat of her heart, her pulse, the tune the song of her gasping_.

Connected and never apart. He closed his eyes and rolled over shoving his hand down his pants to sort himself out.

--

--

Naruto returned first. Older, taller, more powerful, voice slightly deeper and body broader and that kind of step to his walk that said _respect. _

She returned two weeks later, both he and Naruto did a double take as she stepped through the gates, black boots kicking up dust, two other women behind her. She smiled and gave them the peace sign.

He wanted to drive a kunai into his brain for the fact that he noticed _her hips had started to swell like that_.

--

--

Sometimes, if you walk a certain way past certain streets, you could see where there were burn marks on the ground and he knew it was left from his family. The main streets were painted over, but there were some spots that were forgotten, some cracks that hadn't been mortared.

The second time Sakura had been late, they had gone to her house, far more hesitant than the first time. Kakashi (by far the least damned of the three of them) went to her door, knocked. Her father answered, grizzled white beard and faded chuunin vest.

"She moved." he snapped out the address, they said goodbye to a slammed door and found her at her new apartment in a even dodger side of town. Dazed children sat in there street, some idly kicking the ball around, syringes scattering the ground. It was a street away from her house they found her, hands pressed to coughing child's head. Her face was screwed up in concentration whilst the sickly little girl under palm whimpered. After awhile, the girls palor darkened and she wasn't so pale, then slowly she stretched her fingers in wonderment.

It really hit how much Sakura had changed, what she had given up and how somehow she _thrived_. Sasuke gave a wry smile because behind her was a long scorch mark.

--

--

_Sasuke_.

She was breathing in his ear, so hard and begging of him.

_Sasuke_.

Her blunt nails in his back, the way her skin slid along his, how she was real in his hands.

_SasukeSasukeSasukeSauke_

How she said his name, how she didn't turn him away like the others.

_Not the traitors son_.

Her lover.

How that was the best thing in the world.

--

--

Both he and Naruto found solace in Sakura. She opened her arms to them, accepted them, others mistakes did not matter. Not when they learnt about the Kyuubi, not when he screamed at them his father was a traitor of the worst sort to the village, she would just sit next to them, arms about their shoulders and cried if they couldn't or stayed strong when they broke down. When they had all turned seventeen, she took them both by the hand and let them get pissed together, cause fuck the law, they were old enough to kill, old enough to drink.

It was after those long drinks that he offered to walk her home and in those slow steps she stood in front of him and pressed her ear to his chest and heard his heart beat. "I'd listen to mine when I was away Sasuke, every night and we we're together again." she sighed, and he closed his eye because he just didn't understand what she meant.

He fell upon her skin, connected in everyway.

--

--

When he was much old and she hadn't changed very much, he stood at the door that led to the private courtyard rooms. His mother, frail in her old age was in a chair watching her grand children run about. Itachi's offspring and his own all competing against each other. He knew his because of their bright green eyes, and the little girl with bright pink hair that they all snorted at. Sakura had been deployed from on a misson, _strictly _Konouichi_. _

--

--

Two weeks after, she had returned, arms slung over team-mates shoulders, her legs weak it seemed and unsteady walking. Tsunade rushed forward, ordering to medic for her and the other badly wounded member.

It was some hours later that Sakura sobbed out to him -omitting some details- what had happened.

He held her close while she cried and he knew she was listening to that beat that had she had always heard.

That he never could.

--

--

It was two missons after that in which Sakura was killed. He had been caught between two enemy, as had Naruto and Kakashi, and her opponents obvious height that overpowered her, the blade went straight through her gut, the other side to Sasori's blade. Her scream was so loud that Sasuke could hear other sounds with in it. After that they ended the battle quickly, the enemy retreated and went to her lying in the pool of her own blood.

"Sasuke-kun" he pressed a kiss to her blood smeared lips, holding her close. She raised her hand to swipe her fingers along his cheek, then smiled at Naruto and Kakashi. "F-feel you."

"Love you too Sakura-chan." Naruto cracked out over his breaking voice. Her eyelids were fluttering so fast.

He pressed his ear to her chest. There was no beat, just silence. "I-I heard it Sakura, I did, you gotta keep it going, I need to hear it - I need…"

He could hear it now, but he never would again.

--

--

Right, ignore the grammar/spelling/other shit. Hope you enjoy

--

--

Afterahardday.

--


	7. Talk, Static, Split Screen, SasuSaku

Talk, Static, Split Screen.

--

Disclaim ownership of course material

This is another AU set in my mind with Sakura and Sasuke talking and having a half romance in a place I sat one. Enjoy it I suppose. Lyrics are from a smattering of songs. My tense slips everywhere, I'm sorry.

--

_Your sick, I'm tired, let's dance, dance, dance._

--

It began like this.

The branch over hung the stream. Sakura had her basket with a book, packet of chip and thermos of coffee. She had walked there with no real thought. The spring-almost-summer air spurring her on till she found this alcove of nature down a strange looking path. She smiled widely, took her shoes off, took the chequered picnic blanket to tie it to the branch. She stuck her shoes on top of the basket, went to base of the tree and began to climb out, pulling the basket by the blanket/rope so it was close by. She took out her packet of chips and began munching, feet dangling over the clear stream, humming a song to herself.

"What are you doing here?"

--

_Stay with me, lay with me_

--

She looked up, smiling.

"Eating, what does it look like?"

The boy who could be not much older than her frowned from behind midnight dark hair.

"This is my families land, you can't be here."

She frowned back.

"Well you aren't using it right now, so is it really a problem?"

"You can't just go onto other people's land like that. It doesn't matter how big the Uchiha property is…"

"Look I didn't realise this was your land. I came out here because I needed to get away, if it really bothers you I can just go. _Or_ I could be a guest who brought food and you could join me on this branch."

He stared at her and she smiled widely back. He shrugged and came up next to her, she gave him the thurmos to sip out of and held her packet of chips up to munch on.

They didn't say anything, just looked out in the same direction, down the stream till it turned a corner from their sight.

--

_You must give your life away._

--

It began like this.

"Why are you still here?"

"What?"

He turned to her, his eyes were so much older than even an old mans.

"Why are you still here?"

"Because I want to be."

"You can't be here, if anyone finds you…"

"I'm guest aren't I?"

"Yes but…"

Sometimes straight forward logic is infallible.

But they were looking in the same direction and never at each other. Sometimes she'd look down, at the stream with the dragonflies that would skim across the top, sometimes he would look up at the sky, at the dragonfly shapes the clouds would make.

It was all the same really. Up and down, side to side, front and back. It all just went in a circle.

--

It continues. They meet, sometimes saying a lot of times, sometimes saying nothing.

Once his brother comes to meet her and she smiled widely at his cold impassive face. She tells them she doesn't have a brother, or a sister, just a mother who bought the cottage down blocks down.

_(You know the one? With white roses in rose out the front, looks like a fairy house? That one? Yeah. I want to get a bird cage and get two white doves.)_

One day she brings her closest friend along. He and the blonde haired boy do nothing but fight and she firmly tells them that they are too stop this pissing contest _right now_.

_(What are you?! Cave men?! Grow up a little, and if you keep doing that you will both fall in and take my shoes with you. I will take one of both of your shoes if that happens.)_

She ended up having to take their shoes.

It is her favourite pair.

--

It occurs to them one day that they don't actually know each others names.

"I'm Sakura by the way, Sakura Haruno."

"Sasuke, Sasuke Uchiha."

"I knew you were an Uchiha."

"Still. Can't just say Sasuke, you might think I am a bastard or something."

"Nah, I'm a bastard kid. My Daddy was a pilot that left after a night. You don't have the same look that I do, you aren't bastard."

He shook his head and they kept staring down.

--

_The beauty of Grace is that it makes life not fair._

--

She pulled the scarf with bells around her against the wind that was blowing after the storm last night. He politely ignored the bruises on her shoulder that the shawl was there to hide.

"Did you really have to wear one with bells, its annoying."

"You find everything annoying Sasuke."

"…hn."

"It's starting to get colder Sasuke."

"Yeah… it is."

"Do you like winter?"

"Sometimes."

"Why only sometimes?"

"Cause no body likes something all the time."

"That's not true."

"What do you like all the time then Sakura?"

"…You"

--

_Not trying to show you apart of my no one else can find._

--

For the first time, Sasuke brought something to their meetings it was a thermous of tea. They both drank it quickly, then because he could waste the money he dropped it into the stream, watching it bob away and they wondered idly where it would end up. He likes the way she smiles.

So he continues to bring her gifts. The day she doesn't come, he brings her a flower. He sits for the normal time they normally do, drops the water in and leaves.

The second day it happens he endevours to find what is going on, he finds the fairy house (the one with white roses out the front) along with his brother. Its small compared to the other big ones in the street, the statues that littered it where old and some where covered in ivy.

He walks forward, his brother behind him and knocks on the door. He hears some sort of scuffling behind, footsteps and then the door opens, and he sees her green eyes and that shawl over her shoulders again, without bells but with pretty beads that catch the light. He can see how hard her pulse is beating in her throat. A woman appears behind her with shocking red hair, but the same eyes, same look. She stares at him then her brother behind and turns to go up the stairs of that small little house.

Sakura smiles at him and he knows that her hand being kept on the door knob to stop its shaking. He'll just blink and pretend he didn't see anything.

"I - we - brought this for you." He lifts up his next present to her, a cage with white doves in it. The look on her face is not something he has ever caused before. She grins so big and painful and she might have been crying but he really couldn't look.

She takes the cage from his hands and stares at the two birds. He doesn't know if she'll name them. Instead she begins laughing at sets the two birds on the veranda floor and gives him a kiss on the cheek. "Thank-you Sasuke-kun"

He knew then he had to leave. She told him and Itachi good-bye and thank-you.

--

It began like this. She was sitting on the tree branch, holding the empty cage.

"Where'd they go?"

"Mum made me get rid of them."

"Oh."

"I called them Pretty and Promise."

From behind her ear she pulled a snow white feather and gave it to him. "Present for you Sasuke-kun."

He noticed vaguely how tiny her wrists were.

"I'm tired Sasuke-kun, so so tired." She looked down, watching those dragonflies. She sighed. He blinked at her. She kicked off here shoes, watching them splash and then go down, rolling across the rocking bottom through the clear water. She sighed and took off her red and white striped jacket, her collar bones stuck out under the straps of her white dress, She began to slid off the branch, he watch as her dress slid up, exposing the backs of her thighs and then she went down, _down_, _down_ into the water with a splash, stumbling forward on her uneven landing.

Her dress twisted out around her, she said something to herself, she sat down in the water, it came up to her neck and she tipped her head back so she was fully submerged staring up at him. He stared back down between his feet.

She smiled. He half smirked back.

She sat up in a gasp for air and her dress was tight and clinging to her. She looks so innocent, a fairy.

She turned to look at him.

"Summers going soon Sasuke-kun, I've gotta go again."

He knew he wouldn't see her again.

--

_As far back as it goes, we've watched the time roll by._

--

End.

--

Yeah, so that was weird and didn't actually make a lot of sense. Hope you enjoyed.


	8. Ephemeral, ItaSaku

Ephemeral

--

Disclaim ownership of source materal.

So I started off wanting to write some ItaSaku smut, then I was like naaah, you just want to write Itachi smut in general. And then it turned into ItaSaku again -- well at least in part. So this is Itachi enduring his hormones. And then it got out of hand - like majority and Itachi got psychotic, and its really screwed up at the end. -face palm- maybe I should just right the rest of hardwire and get rid of it there.

(Has any one ever noticed that society portrays it as appealing for men to be complete sluts? It bothers me even if I do find it attractive…)

He is evil!Itachi rather than redeemed-not-psycho!Itachi, in light of this, I realise he is terribly out of character, but _I don't care_. 83

Warnings: smex, smex and more smex and murder. That's all there really is too it actually, and my normal twisted notes on humanity, _thank-you to Marquis de Sade_.

--

_-- Lust's passion will be served; it demands, it militates, it tyrannizes. --_

Itachi was sixteen when he first saw a woman in a half-state of undress, he had accidentally walked in on Kisame employing the services of a lady. She was a top the shark man, her head thrown, her long hair falling down her pale skinned back, her lips opened as gasped out, a long keening moan fell from them and he watched a trickle of sweat curve from her temple down the side of her face, to disappear down her neck. Her soft legs curved around Kisame, as her body still in a moment of what he would know as evanescent perfection.

His body was warm though none of it showed, he knew that since Kisame's eyes were closed that he had not been seen, but the woman, who had turned her head to the side caught him, her lips moved to a sighing smile and Itachi shut the door.

He could safely say that was what had done those _human_ part of him (which he had kept so carefully suppressed) flare up. _Logically_ he knew it was a chemical that was pumping to parts of his brain that then sent it to other parts of his body. _Logically _he knew it would pass -- but that did not change that his breath was that _microscopic _bit faster, and this his pants were just that _bit _uncomfortable and that he could get the image (_of those soft, soft, soft legs and graceful back_) the sound (_Kisame's low grunt and her breathy gasped moans_) and the smell (_sickly sweet and chocking almost_) out of his brain.

From then on, he would wake (when he did actually go to sleep) hot and (dare he say it?) bothered, _they were just hormones_, he knew, but that didn't stop them screwing his brain over.

So the next town they stopped in, he waited till Kisame had disappeared with a paid lady and looked around for a potential female, he could pay a prostitute, but somehow that was _below_ him. He didn't even really have to look long till a woman approached him, her legs long, her eyes soft and rounded, her shoulders sloping. "Young, aren't you?"

She didn't need to ask it because she already knew. She leant close, placed a hand to his neck to hold him in place, his pressing her lips to his neck (he was standing stock still, waiting for an attack and because she smelt good -- clean this one, better than some women). She was taller than him, but not by much and it could have had something to do with her shoes, "I'll teach you," she said, her hand dropped to his, finding them under the sleeve of his coat, twisting her fingers around them. "Come, I wont even charge you."

He never did know her name, but she did as she promised, taught her every part of a female body, he went about it like learning a technique, and to her pleasure he learnt quickly. At first her hand guided him, told him where things were too hard or where they were too soft, how to kiss, how to hold and how to cause her to moan. She taught him over and over again. He found as much pleasure in serving her body (which he noted was incredible - tanned all over, not yet showing age, soft and pliable with no marks or scars) as he did in his release. It suddenly made sense about how men were drawn to women, all soft and pretty and full of secret mysteries under those layers of clothing.

(Not that he will ever tell anybody but he woke in the morning with half his money gone and a letter written in messy hand writing saying '_I lied, every teacher needs their pay. Though it was a pleasure teaching you. Regards'_)

_-- No lover, if he be of good faith, and sincere, will deny he would prefer to see his mistress dead than unfaithful --  
_

He found it easy after that, to attract women, in fact too easy as he matured, none of the women that flocked to him were truly interesting enough. It was the ones that hide from him, with those he would soft and gentle and coaxing, the ones who violently disregarded him, he pursued viciously. In the end they normally would succumbed to him (he would make them accept him, many things he was, but not a rapist).

Though the instances that a woman actually caught his eye were slim, like that Mist girl who had such longer fingers that she clawed a mans eyes out before him, her thick curling hair mattered with blood. She had had the gall to lick her fingers clean in front of him (and he found that she moaned loudest -- a long guttural harsh note -- when he bit under her ear). He still found her when he was in Mist, she was still receptive as she had been the first time. He had even pursued his brother's team mate, whose tiny body that he could hold to him with one arm, that held the ability unique in shinobi to kill and to save, that precise control of herself he enjoyed breaking (she was silent for the most part -- a quiet woman, too much shoved to the background -- those little gasping noise into the hollow of his neck, her nails that could rip him part if she had been in her right mind). He had found her after the massacre of her ANBU team, scrubbing her hands free of blood, her dead compatriots around her she was in the middle of them, rocking and sobbing like a child.

He'd never have what would be a relationship with any of them, they knew this but it didn't stop them. He knew it was a trumped mating instinct, he was a powerful male and despite contraception it was still the act of mating and it was that base instinct that drew them, he could be strong, protect them and in a way he _was _possessive of them. He had found the Mist girl flirting outrageously with the men of a ANBU squad and he knew she was taunting him because they had fought on his last parting.

After he had seduced her once more, he left their bodies in a pile before her door the next morning.

He'd caught Sakura on a date with some man of the last name Lee, she'd been shy and soft with him and when she sensed his chakra she had made a polite excuse to go to the bathroom, he caught her as she walked away, rough unlike he normally was, whispering what a liar she was. She cried at his words -- but still made that quiet gasping noise into his neck, a little louder than normally at his rough treatment.

It was at times when he had found them crying that he wondered at their dependency on him to remind them that they were human beings. When he had first encountered Sakura, she had clung to him as the smell of the dead clung to her. The Mist girl had to be dominated so that she could be reminded that she was mortal in some way, still like those people she had killed so viciously.

_-- Sensual excess drives out pity in man --_

He had even tormented his brother with the image of Sakura, wreathing and panting against him. He knew his foolish little brother would be utterly destroyed by that. He breathed in it. He mastered a woman's body as he did a jutsu -- life its was just one long technique -- as he had the first time. He used it as he did a technique, destroying like he did with a technique. He murdered his own children born of their bodies. Then shoved them against the wall of their own desire, using the crux he had created within them to succumb again. As he did again and again. He stole from them as he had been stolen from the first time.

_-- Lust is to the other passions what the nervous fluid is to life; it supports them all, lends strength to them all ambition, cruelty, avarice, revenge, are all founded on lust --_

--

End

--

Holy. Crap.

Anyways, hope you liked. Its dark its smutty, its why what happens when clan killers have children.

Merrr, if you don't like it, give me reason, not that I care, but your perspective interests me for at least a little while. XD If you do like, i give you cookies!

--

after..day


	9. Playing Artist, ItaKure

**title:** Playing Artist  
**characters:**Itachi Uchiha x Kurenai Yuhi  
**summary:**And artist and an art theif. Such pretty games in the world of illusions.  
**rating:** M  
**notes:**So I've got of a bit of a fetish for these two. They are just so damn attractive. There was going to be more then this, but I got lazy and bored. It was on my lj first but I felt like posting it here. enjoy.  
**standard disclaimer applies.**

* * *

--Playing Artist--

He was a boy, compared to her, a boy with shadows so dark under his eyes, they belonged to a man.

She was an artist, they had said, she could spin a genjutsu like none other, so fine, that you could hear the birds, feel the grass, _know_, not think, _know _that it was real.

But it wasn't something that had come naturally and she'd had to work for it, through others affection and encouragement, through her sensei's carefully laid advice, Asuma's gleeful shouting in the chuunin exams, she'd learnt and she'd loved things and knew it was all hard labour.

He, a boy, mocked her, by doing something that was the one thing she woud never, could never, he commited an act so simple but yet so terrible that none but he could. He mocked her with it, and he had no idea he did, how it made her seeth. He got his pretty pinwheel eyes that men would claim the power of Gods, just by simply killing his best friend.

She'd watched him, as he had grown and trilled almost in victory in their battle that only she had within herself when he had left. She was still -- still an artist and no cheating boy had taken it from her.

Kurenai knew her place, and it wasn't in Konoha. When she started at the academy when they moved to Konoha, the children stared, 'Are you an Uchiha?' Kurenai blinked, her bright red eyes confused. 'Uchiha?' They laughed then, she didnt even know her own family. That night she clung to her mothers skirt and sobbed, they'd called her a bastard Uchiha. For her part, Kurenai's mother petted her hair, wiped her tears and introduced her to Mikoto Uchiha from a distance, and pointed out every single way they didn't look a like.

Kurenai could deal with it then, she wasn't an Uchiha, she was no bastard, her father had been from a different village. She told them quietly and firmly that she looked completely different.

So she set about marking her difference from the Uchiha. She cast an illusion of herself, morphed her love of nature into her genjutsu, slowly became her own greatest illusion. At eight she took her mother's red lipstick, older, powerful, mysterious like the women from the land she came from that she had vague memories off. She called it her art, her beautiful dangerous art, and she'd spin it around her mother, letting both dwell in the memories of whence they had come.

The first time she met him, it was in an assembly of the major Genjutsu users of the villge, to see the levels that had been achieved amoungst the elite of the field type. He was standing at the back, ten years younger then her and head bowed, but despite his obvious efforts to draw back blend into the shadows, she couldn't take her eyes from him. She seethed, damn Uchiha, not just him, all of them. They made you want to love them.

They'd praised her, at the academy, at the chuunin exams, her skill so fine, that her opponent went to sleep thinking it was a bright sunny day and he was back at home. Her. But he, him and his _sharingan_. So, quietly, she seethed.

He must of noticed, of course he noticed, he was ninja, it was impossible not to. His hair parted and she looked into the swirling tomoes for the first time. She smothered the gasp and turned away, swallowing down her fast breaths.

--

He remembered her, Kurenai, well of course he would. When her and her mother had appeared his father had deal with the gossip that she was an Uchiha bastard, not at all helped by her apparent talent for Genjutsu, his father had to point out rather loudly that Uchiha eyes were black except when the Sharingan was turned on, and since her eyes were red all the time she'd be blind by now.

So he inspected her, this woman who had caused such issues, however petty. Tense, compact, little space in her guard, even when he kicked her into the water. Even then she was tense, waiting for him, so very controlled, but he wasn't where she expected.

He inspected her again, she was a kunoichi and it showed, soft, mysterious, he remembered the comments of the men in his teams when they spoke of women. Oh, they knew she was mysterious all right, but the only mystery they wanted to know was how to unwrap that dress she wore.

It mildly shocked Itachi, that he was now wondering the same thing as he stood behind her. The curve of her back, the fall of her hair, half soaked and dripping. The way her wet clothes looked that much heavier pulling that much more around her body.

"You live up to your reputation, Kurenai-san, however --"

And then he had a millitude other situations to deal with.

--

The first time they met alone it was a boarder patrol, she didn't know why he was here, where his partner was or what he had hoped to accomplish, but she had been sent to set genjutsu traps. Carefully she painted out the seals onto the trees and then onto her scrolls, so they could be monitored by anyone. She was best suited to this type of duty, her genjutsu flourished in dark forests that surrounded the north gate.

She heard a branch crack, and she stiffened, her guard was open like this, whole back exposed. There was another crack and she pulled her kunai and spun, pressing her back to the tree.

Crack. crack.

She gripped her kunai harder.

"Didn't I tell you? That low level genjutsu, it wont work on me."

"I-Itachi Uchiha?"

"Ah, so you _do_ remember?"

She did not speak. Just let her fingers curl and uncurl around the blade. He took a step forward, out of the shadows and it seemed as if his eyes moved first. Kurenai pressed her back harder into the tree.

"If you are trying to activate your genjutsu, I would desist, I'd just turn it against you again." He lifted the edge of his hat, dragging it so slow she couldnt do anything but slowly get caught in his genjutsu again.

Kurenai cursed. She was better then this!

But the sky turned and everything was inverted and she hated it because it was beautiful, and it was sick.

She was on the ground. Leg's awkwardly and she turned them around. Itachi would be appearing any minute now, Kakashi had told her about this, she'd be bound and --

There was hands, at her neck. They were soft, and she could feel a breath at her ear. She swallowed. The hands stilled, for a second, then they went up, up, along her jaw, then across again, and they they were against her lips, her shallow breaths hitting the fingers she couldn't see, didn't want to see. They ran along her teeth and she opened her eyes, back into the twisted world.

"Kurenai-san... I have... thought of you since our short battle." He was there now, she looked down and saw black arms wrapped around her shoulders, she could feel his chest pressed against her back, saw his straight black hair lay against her own wavy locks.

She turned her head toward his. "Why are you doing this?"

"Are you afraid?"

"...yes."

"You remind me of my mother."

She struggled then, but he held her tight. At last her frustration and her fear got the better of her. "Why? Why arent you hurting me, why aren't you --"

Whatever she had been going to shout out ceased when she saw his head dip out of the corner of her eye and felt him slowly lick up her neck. "This _isn't _hurting you?"

His eyes were staring up at her again, and she tried, she could keep her illusion, she'd always...

He tilted his head up, lips brushing against hers so very slow. Her mouth was till open through her fast breaths, and his tongue touched against hers, against her teeth and her lips.

"I..." she began, watching him watching her. "...I hate you." She sighed it out and with in seconds the world spun again and she was slumped against the tree and he was standing where he had been before.

It had drained her, she'd barely fought him, it was a different sort of pain altogether, and her knees shook.

Itachi smirked. "Kurenai-san, you still live up to your reputation."

--

fin.x

--

afterahardday


	10. Hands In The Air

**Title: **Hands In The Air.  
**Characters:** Deidara, Hinata, Sasuke, Naruto and Sakura  
**Rating:** M  
**Summary:** To be alive is to live from adrenaline kick to adrenaline kick -- the lives of few buzzed of mortality.  
**Notes: **I listened too to much Bomfunk MC. Like… tooooooooo much. And assorted other rap/hiphop. Anyways. No, this doesn't make sense. Perhaps see it as a series of vices. Maybe. Maybe. Either way. Its dark and me briefly exploring characters. And listen to 'B-boys & Fly Girls' by Bomfunk MC if you can. Its on youtube somewhere. And playlist dot com. Knock yourself out. Whole thing is AU. I am willing to do other characters and maybe write another part to this, just throw characters are me.  
**Warning: **Themesfeatures killing, speeding, drug use, masturbation, and other stupid but typical human behaviour. If you don't want to read, don't.

--

_B-Boys, Fly Girls, throw your hands in the air  
ai-yeah, just like you don't care. _

_--_

Deidara was walking, through backstreets.

He stayed in places for just a minute -- for just enough. Then left again. He need this before, the apprehension before the better rush, the better thrill. Outside he stood with his gang, not his friends, but everyone had to belong somewhere. Glancing around, shifty, on edge, still moving. The leaders were talking to each other -- leaders, leaders, leaders -- Deidara never had inclination to be one. He shivered again, watching, waiting, he lit a a cigarette and ground it between his teeth, living in that fleeting cloud of smoke.

Hostility broke. Carefully from his sleeve, Deidara pulled his knife, similar was done by those around him. Step by step the two groups closed in, who was the enemy? Deidara just didn't give a fuck.

Instead he yelled, straight from the pit of his stomach, and leapt. The fucker he attacked went down with a knife in the throat.

The fight began in earnest.

Deidara cackled.

--

Sasuke was dieing.

No, no, he wasn't. He could have been though.

He was better then dieing. He pushed the syringe in deeper, just a little more -- just a little more and -- and -- _ah._

He felt his body shudder. Felt his body seize and he moaned, so long and loud that he'd never had done it before.

The syringe fell with a _thunk_ on the carpet. It rolled under his bed and Sasuke fell back -- _back, back, back_ through time and space and it all spiralled inside his mind in hot bright colours. He was _flying_. Through the fire and though again, every vein was a aware that it was connected to his heart and his mind had never felt such freedom from its heart and wants and needs and --

Sasuke died -- and Sasuke was resurrected.

--

Hinata smiled.

The highway stretched out in front of her, oh so long and filled with cars. And in the midnight air filtered through open windows of her black Mercedes. She closed her eyes, smelling the night air that was thick with petrol. Then opened them again, her hand went to the gear stick and flicked it up to fourth.

Hianata smiled, and slammed the accelerator.

Her back pressed against the cool leather and her stomach seemed to move first -- the cars flashed past, she heard horns beep.

Right -- left -- turn -- weave. _boomboomboom_. Her heart was telling her to go _faster_, the lights blurred, her arms shook and her fast reflexes were the only things keeping her alive -- a red light blurred past her eyes and she smiled, wild and with far too many teeth and _oh if only Neji could see her now_-- and her hair was in her eyes and the music blasted so damn loud -- oh shit was that a semi trailer? -- turnturnturn -- fingers slipping on the steering -- some how, some how she missed by a full 380 -- she heard the _rrrrk!_ of the tires, smelt the rubber, heard the engine, her heart was -- boom_boom_boom -- before slamming on the break at the next red light.

Hinata breathed.

--

Naruto stared.

There was the body of water -- and there was him. He stared down and heard nothing but the lapping of it against the jetty. He had no idea how far it was down, but he was going too -- too…

He yelled, out and loud and it bounced around and around and around. He took a step back and then another. He took a breath and sprung forward, he was running -- running and he twisted back, splayed his arms out as he fell. The water was coming towards him, faster and faster, he couldn't hear anything, the air was blasting out his ears -- can't breath, can't breath -- the water was getting closer, he watched its broken surface ripple and get -- get closer-- and get --

Naruto hit the water.

--

Sakura watched.

There was her, in the mirror. Her hands dropped to finger the hem of her shirt, carefully she gripped, carefully she watched herself, carefully admired herself, then all at once she ripped off her shirt. Then went her skirt and panties. She stood in nothing but a lace bra in front of her mirror. She knelt, ran her hand up her leg, up her thigh, to reach -- _ah. _

She spread her legs wider. Watching her -- the way her fingers slid and how involuntarily her mouth sprung open and her eyes wanted to slide shut -- what was that Ino had told her? Faster and harder, _oh_ just harder _ohohohohahhhh_ and -- her legs spasmed, she couldn't keep them under her. She fell back, still moving, needing, wanting more and more and -- she watched herself, sliding against herself, smelt that sickly sweet smell, and her legs spread just so --

_-- Ahh -- ahhh -- haaah --_

Was she making those sounds? they always sounded so fake, so stupid, so -- like movies -- more, she needed, she was begging to no one. She felt her hips move, her back arched and there -- it was, it was -- _ahhhh _--

Sakura gasped.

--

Fin.x

--

Afterahardday

--


	11. Distillate, ItaKure

**Title: **Distillate.  
**Pairing: **Kurenai Yuuhi x Itachi Uchiha  
**Summary:** In his desperation, in his insanity and in his need, he'd go too her window, and as she slept he'd kneel at her bedside, take her hand in his and bend over it, in prayer, and in obsession. _Hail Mary, full of Grace. _  
**Rating:** M  
**Notes:** I watched Perfume again. Nuhduh. The quotes from that, as well. I am… not sure about this, but the soundtrack just… made me want to write this scene… But if you know this movie… I encourage you too wriiiiite some form of Naruto!Perfume thingy. I chose Itachi/Kurenai cause a) I am obsessed with that pairing. B) the movie is about obtaining beauty, and the two really beautiful women in Naruto are Kurenai and Konan plus this pairing is about beauty. C) Itachi does obsessive desperation _so well_. I really don't know where this was meant too go… it just did… and erm…-sigh- I wanted to give Itachi something… pretty. I've never written him so… adoring…  
**standard disclaimer applies. **

For the first time in their lives, they believed that they had done something

…purely…

out of love.

--

Dis-til-late [dis-tl-it, -eyt, di-stil-it]

_–noun _  
**1.** the product obtained from the condensation of vapours in distillation.  
**2.** any concentration, essence, or abstraction.

--

He wasn't sure how many he'd killed, his clan, people after that. The blood, he could smell it all, sickly and sweet and as refined a ninja he was, he knew each and every smell, every scent, he could remember them all. His mother, soft and warm, his father, bitter and brooding, mixing to create something on the dojo far stronger. What had made him.

Even at times, when he felt like it, his brother, as he coughed up the betrayal in red splattering against black, undetectable and just not strong enough compared to Itachi's.

He doubted Sasuke or Madara knew these subtleties. He doubted anyone did.

Doubt they'd ever noticed her. She was in a range of difference, he yet she was the same. He'd watched her as a young woman of 23 and he of 13, as she touched her hand to Asuma's face and Itachi and everyman sighed. She was deadly, it was true, deadly and beautiful. As she walked past, for a second Itachi closed his eyes and felt the air brush off her body and onto his. Sweet…. He'd always remember, so _so _sweet, any other man might of cried.

In his desperation, in his insanity and in his need, he'd go too her window, and as she slept he'd kneel at her bedside, take her hand in his and bend over it, in prayer, and in obsession. _Hail Mary, full of Grace. _

He was not prepared for the night she woke. Quietly he was murmuring over her hand and like she was her own reality, she slipped from asleep too awake. She did not scream, which was too be expected, seasoned ninja _did not scream_. He felt it only in the shift of her finger, the tenseness that came with being aware, and he watched her eyes shift around, slowly like a dream, as if this was still a dream.

He was caught, to run? To stay? To give in?

"Uchiha?"

He nodded.

"Is there a mission?"

"No."

"Then why…"

"Shhh." He lifted his hand to her mouth, she stared up at him and he waited for fear to flicker into her, he didn't want it, but he knew… those red eyes were too much like his mothers. "Please just… just be silent."

She nodded, her shoulders still just that bit too tense. Carefully he rose off his crouching position, then a knee to her bed, then the other. He crouched over her, she was stock stiff under him, he could see her mind thinking it, see the wheels turning '_he's Konoha, he wouldn't hurt me… he's Konoha…_'. He wanted to smile, to tell her too stop lying to herself, he had no allegiance anymore, not when the news spread in the morning.

Instead, he leant up and pressed his face behind her ear, his nose in her hair. She was breathing shallow, trying to keep herself together, she knew she was powerless, and any ninja knew that struggling was useless when you were overpowered. He felt the way her breasts pressed into his chest as she took those fast breaths, he threaded his fingers into her hair and shifted his knees closer, and tighter and tried to hold her as much as he could. Pulled her so close she whimpered.

"Itachi-kun"

Why did she say that, was it too remind him of his age? Didn't she know, there was no children in shinobi… no boys no girls, just weapons…

"Please, Itachi-kun, you are hurting me… I can't breath properly, please." He changed his grip and pressed her face into his shoulder. It wasn't belong before she began kicking and thrashing.

He thought he might of killed her, when she was so still in his arms, her arms hung without fear and her head fell back, her eyes closed and her throat exposed. Hair fell dark like a trickle of blood against the white cotton sheets.

He pressed his mouth, not a kiss, but a feeling, to her throat, and there he felt it, a tiniest of _thumps_. He sighed and lowered her back down.

She was so still, she was asleep, knocked out, but not dead. He'd spared one, just one.

He suddenly was ceased by how little time he had, his hands shook, he was shaking and she was so still. He didn't know what he had done… what had he done? He looked at her, the piece of hair that was fluttering with her breath. He brushed it away, he felt… clumsy? She was so _still_…

His shaking hands went too the bindings of her chest, he couldn't unravel them now. He just ran his hands over them his face so close, he was embracing her, his soul was remembering and clinging. Maybe his sharingan was on he didn't know, her skin was so smooth, _so smooth_, ice on a lake yet too crack, and he was… he was… he was feeling and she was… she was… He pressed his face into her stomach, and breathed as she breathed. Opened his mouth against her skin and swallowed her with all that he possessed.

He sprang back. Some how he landed on the floor, and then the spell was broken, saw her chest rise and fall, saw how he had cut the bindings and he shuddered, there was no mark of him. Not on her, but he could still feel her. He could still see her, bare and perfect, he'd counted those ribs, with his lips, his fingers... _he could still feel her_.

He still felt her, so many years later, and there was Sasuke -- there was Sasuke so broken and still smelt like the hatred, like the cursed blood of the Uchiha's. And Itachi was dieing, and falling, and he tried to forget everything else, he'd done what he had had too with Sasuke and now his eyes blurred with blindness, with emotion, with relief… for the final time… for that last….

So many years has passed, every day had felt as long as a life age of the earth. But he could still…

He was in her room again. He could smell her again, this was not a brief passing of air, she was all around him.

There she lay, as he remembered, but this time she was awake, her blood eyes just watched him, no fast breathing, just gentle, the rise and fall, the gentle way things should have gone if things had been different, if he'd just have enough sense the first time around…

… this was the last time around. He moved to her bed, and still… she was still _so still_. But with a lax anticipation. He moved above her again.

"Itachi…"

She threaded her fingers to his hair. He could have choked, he could of cried, instead he pressed his lips to hers, and he was holding her so close, and now she was holding him in turn. And she doing it because… because… she didn't expect of him, because she, she, she lov --

Itachi closed his eyes, Sasuke blurred out of focus --

And he got, what he always wanted.

It was pure.

--

_love. _

--


	12. Kiss You Again, ItaKure

**Title:**Kiss You Again  
**Pairing:** Uchiha Itachi x Kurenai Yuhi (slight Kurenai x Konan)  
**Summary:** I; _my one problem with life is that I could die at any minute, and I don__'__t._  
**Rating: **M  
**Warnings:** references to sex, drugs/drug usage, prostitutes and general stuff that people like to ignore. I am reposting this from the Mismatched, as it is now being run as a competition and my story had to moved.

* * *

I; _my one problem with life is that I could die at any minute, and I don__'__t._

"You are a bit young to be around here, kid." Kurenai tilted her head to the side, surveying the 'kid' then turned back to Anko, done with her observations.

"Does this make me too young?" From inside his pocket he pulled out a wad of bills.

Kurenai raised an eyebrow. "Anko'll deal with you, I've got some morals." From her pocket she with drew her cigarette case. Carefully she with her beloved cancer stick. Beside her Anko put out hers.

"I don't want her, I want you."

Anko sneered. "I'd ask why, but you'd probably say something sick like she reminds you of your mother. You always look like people's mothers Kurenai."

Kurenai sighed, tilted her head back and arched her body carefully from where she was leaning over the hood of Anko's car. "Forget it, I'll deal with him, he's probably doing it to be one of the big boys."

She heard the other woman laugh. Kurnei straightened and went over to the boy. "How old are you?" She tilted her head again, adjusting the garter strap that was clearly visible on her too short dress, amused as his sooty lashes, thicker then Kurenai could ever hope for, watched the movement.

"16" he muttered. Just that bit taller then him in her heels. She trailed her hand back up to touch her black acrylic finger to his nose, watching him flinch and wondered how he was going to go about the _rest_ of this.

"Alright then, come on then, do you have a car, an apartment?"

He nodded his head. Kurenai took his hand, cold and clammy and he flinched again. Gently she pressed a kiss to his cheek. "Just pretend I am a close friend, a teacher, I'm just teaching you something different."

--

He was very slow to kiss her, which surprised, most boys she'd been with were too fast to that, and quietly she muttered that boys just didn't have hormones like they used to.

"I'm not a boy," he said fast, defending himself almost.

"Yes you are, you are 16, you can have sex, but if anyone finds about this, I'll get arrested and jailed for seducing a minor." she still had his hand in hers. He blinked at her.

Slowly, and carefully, which seemed how he liked doing things, she changed her grip on his hand, without her shoes she was the same height as he, so lifting his hand to rest on her back of her neck was easy. Then it was okay to him, it seemed, to touch, he put his other hand on her thigh, thumb brushing over her garter belt, over the hem of her skirt, which surprised Kurenai, up and up and up to her waist. His fingers pressed lightly.

"I won't tell anyone."

"Good, because going to jail for thirteenth time might be unlucky."

"Thirteenth?"

"Possession of drugs, for twelve counts. Battery and assault for one, but the guy was trying to rape me, which would have been fine, if he was paying. But he wasn't. So I fought back. Turns out he did have money, enough for a lawyer. That was that."

"That's not fair."

She brushed her thumb over his cheek. "I told you, you're a boy."

"I'm not a boy."

Se leant in close, lips gently brushing against his. His breath was warm and she moved slowly, till eventually he responded, not so afraid as she pulled his body to hers, let him feel how soft and warm she was.

Her hands moved to his back, sliding under his nondescript black shirt, pulling him with her as she took steps back toward the bed. He followed, with that obscure controlled grace he had.

When she was sprawled on her back, he pulled away from her kisses, resting his head in the crook of her neck. His forearms were braced either side of her body, and she carefully tucked his hair behind his ear again and again.

"Is there something wrong?"

There was no reply.

"Do you want to stop?"

She felt him shake his head, and what was pressing against her leg. "A break then? you don't have to rush this you know."

Another shake. He leant back up, his nose brushed her cheek. "I've never been so… out of control."

She smiled, a little sadly. "I know, I know."

* * *

_II; the sky is full of dreams, I don't know how to fly. _

When they were both spent, he did the strangest thing, he pulled her close and buried his face in her hair. "You know this normally cost extra." she muttered.

"I'll pay,"

"You don't need to, you gave me more then two clients paying extra already."

"Then stop talking."

She wasn't offended. "Are people always talking at you then?"

"No they are always wanting things of me."

"All I want is money."

She felt him -- maybe, maybe -- smile against her cheek.

"Is this your apartment?"

"My fathers, this is where he takes his mistresses."

"Ah, I see, following already?"

He grunted. That was all she needed to know.

"Did no one hug you as a child."

"My father told my mother never too."

Kurenai frowned, even her mother when she wasnt suffering from another Coke induced euphoria would hug her.

The slowly she dropped her hand down to his, shifting his grip so there fingers interlaced.

"I dont want pity."

"I'm not piting you, I'm embracing you."

--

Kurenai had never loved, maybe one, briefly in a by gone day when she'd been draped in Asuma's arms, before the state had taken her child from her. But that was gone now. Now she found comfort in Konan's arms, not love, but a safe solitude. That was how Itachi often found her, not really doing very much, Konan's arms draped around her waist, face buried in her neck as they talked in whispers about nothings.

"You boy is coming back," Konan whispered. Kurenai nodded. Neither moved. "You always stay so long with him."

"He likes to hold me."

Konan nodded, Kurenai felt it through the gentle shift of hair and breath.

"I know where he is coming from." Konan muttered, her lips brushing Kurenai's bared shoulders gently. Itachi stood, waiting.

Konan let go and Kurenai unfolded her arms from around her waist. Gently squeezing Konan's hand she went to Itachi, taking his instead.

--

"Who is that woman to you?"

"Hm," she murmured, tired. As this became more regular thing, Itachi's skill and stamina grew.

"That woman, with the blue hair, who is she?"

"A friend. A good friend."

"A lover?"

"I have many lovers."

"No you don't, you have clients, they aren't lovers."

"You would know, would you? That's most definitely why you are coming to me."

He grunted and Kurenai smirked at the sealing.

"You must understand Itachi, you begin to hate men. When you are a… woman of the night, per se. Its disgusting, they bite and hit and sometimes you have to hit _them_, and at times you must partake is some very sick things, then they get angry if they think you are faking it, but its not like there is a reason to like it. This is reality, I despise men, that's way I lay, nothing more, with Konan."

He sat up on his elbow, and she was startled by how young he suddenly looked. "Do you fake it with me?"

She smiled, titling her head and cupped his cheek, brushing her thumb under his eye. "Not so much, you are young, eager to please, it is not so unpleasant as others. And you respect, that is more then you know."

He blinked, "I do not see why not, this is a trade, oldest in the world, its just because sex is deemed as taboo. But its just a trade."

She laughed then, loudly and pulled him for a kiss. "Oh if only society was shaped by you, Uchiha Itachi, perhaps I would not hate myself so much."

* * *

_III; you won't ever get to heaven as a radical. So keep it up soldier._

"He said that? He really said that?" Konan had that under shade of amusement that was her form of laughter. As they leant against the wall, they shared a cigarette.

"He did, but its not that I kiss and tell, but I've never heard anyone so sure of it before, its like there is no difference in his mind. The law may say he's a boy, but he doesn't think like one. He's better then most men --"

"Oi, you two sluts kiss or somethin'?" was a lewd call from a man across the street.

In response Kurenai lifted her leg to Konan's hip, exposing most of her thigh and draped her arms around Konan's neck.

"Pay us and find out." Konan replied, as serious as she was about everything, her husky voice just the pitch to float around the man's head and make him groan, her dark eyes blinking slowly. The man dug into his wallet and muttered, broke it seemed, and moved on. Kurenai dropped her leg but didn't remove her arms around her neck, nor did Konan take her hands from Kurenai's waist.

"Well," Konan murmured. "At least there is one good man."

--

"Whose the worst man you've ever had?" Itachi murmured into her neck, kissing it again every so often.

Kurenai paused the hand that was stroking his back. "Why do you ask?"

"So I can arrest him when I enter the force."

Kurenai laughed, rolling back and pulling Itachi on top of her. "What, so you can be hero Uchiha? Liberator of the Whores?"

He did not meet her gaze, instead she noted, he was looking at her lips. "Perhaps."

She sighed. "His name was Asuma."

"What did he do?"

"Loved me."

"What?"

"He did nothing, just loved me, and that was perhaps the worse thing anybody has ever done."

--

At times Itachi did nothing for her, and that's when she had to remind herself he was a boy. He let her do everything, just as she was used. Sometimes he did everything and it was as if it meant something, he was careful with her, touching her like she was precious. And sometimes they worked in tandem.

She felt young again, young and stupid because his skin was so very hot like it was her seventeenth summer all over again and he wasn't paying her and she was doing it because she wanted to.

Sometimes she was doing it because she wanted it, wanted him, was marvelled by him, him and his honest respect, and maybe, maybe that was close enough to love.

--

"Uchiha, this is going to have to stop when you become respectable." His fingers dug in, hard, and she moved away. "Itachi stop it you are hurting me."

"Why, my father hasn't stopped."

"You aren't your father, everyone knows about Faguku Uchiha, to most of us he's a greedy bastard that keeps putting the taxes up."

"So, I can still have you, I could marry you."

She smirked cruelly then. "Oh yes, a just 17 yr old marrying at 18 yr old hooker. That'll go down a treat."

"We could. I could get your daughter back from the state, and we could have kids together --"

Kurenai pressed her hand to his mouth. "No, no we couldn't. I'm going down in this life Uchiha, Its been my life for the past ten years. The drugs are taking their control and my daughter is better off where she was, though if you ever felt inclined, check in on her, make sure she isn't in some abusers home."

"I won't settle for this, I wont let you go."

Kurenai slapped him then, he stared at the wall that his face had turned too. "Don't you _dare_ give me hope. I sold that too long ago, so don't you _dare."_

Itachi looked back at her then. Sheet pulled to cover most of her, he saw then.

He really saw.

She was no young woman, street lights hid the shadows under her eyes, he carefully pulled back the sheets and counted with his lips and kisses the ribs that stuck out. The jut of her hip bones, the sharpness of her shoulders. Carefully he pressed over each of them, with his fingers, with his lips. The one thing he didn't go near were the deep red bruised marks on her arm, the way the splintered out like icicles on her pale body. When he finished, looking, with his mind this time and she lay twisted on the sheets, her breath shallow from his touches, he hovered her so very still.

"This is going to be the last time, isn't it?"

He nodded.

"Men of valour. They never hang around long. Keep me as a story then, boy."

"I'm not a boy."

She grasped his face in both hands, pulling him close, and kissed him. Like she'd done when she was seventeen and still able to love, able to hope. And just as it had been, it was a kiss that was agonizingly slow, to create, and it never really ended.

"No, I suppose you really aren't."

This time, they left at the same time but not straight away. First Itachi wanted his story and admired her easiness in her own body, the languid smile when she took her liquid happiness. The hypnotic over-alert daze she slid into, stayed inside of. He wanted to remember her like that.

* * *

_IIII; I have touched grace and hated it, because it is what is truly attainable._

* * *

afterahardday


	13. Summer Rain, ItaSaku

**Title:** Summer Rain.  
**Characters/Pairings:** Itachi, Sakura. ItaSaku, slight SasuSaku/NejiSaku  
**Summary:** It's so odd how much can be contained in someone's eyes. Most of all, _his _eyes.  
**Rating:** M  
**Note:** This is for the ten song meme. Basically you stick your music player on Shuffle, then write whatever the song inspires for as long as the song runs. Honestly I was really surprised at the songs it picked. Weird-ass music player. Seemed to have a thing for Bear McCreary and his Battlestar Galactica compositions. And Good Charlotte? Wtf, I'd forgotten I'd even downloaded that. Most of these are really depressing, because apparently all the music I have, no matter how happy it is, had really depressing meanings.  
**standard disclaimer applies.**

**

* * *

**

1. _Them, Them Eyes -- Peggy Lee._

It's so odd how much can be contained in someone's eyes.

Most of all, _his_ eyes.

How easily she fell for them, that first time she looked into them -- with no Sharingan -- just him, trying desperately not to give into her sleep jutsu.

But she insisted ever so firmly. It was the desperateness that did it, the pleading for his trust to not be mistaken. It shook all her the way down. He had started it then, and she would make sure he would never regret putting it in her. He would never fall, not on her watch.

* * *

2. _I'm Not Calling You A Liar -- Florence and The Machine_

"It's not that I think you are a bad person, Itachi," She bit her lip hard again before speaking, "but I know what you need to do, and I know, that someone... Someone _has _to be this person. I thought about it very hard till I realised it had to be me."

"Sakura.... you don't know what you are saying."

"I told Naruto, and he'll be coming soon enough to stop the both of us, so you have to do it _now _Itachi."

"Sakura..."

"Please Itachi, because I need this to end, I can't stand any more of these lies." she choked down the tears. Then she opened her arms to him, waiting.

He came close then, let her wrap around him, warm him, console him, trust him. Then all of a sudden, he ran his blade through her.

"I love you, Itachi."

* * *

3. _All Black -- Good Charlotte_

Itachi walked, for once, as he wished he could have done all his life: with a solid presence, rather than half imagined nightmares.

But this was the life he had chosen -- not that he could see much more it these days. It was like being eaten from the inside, this impending blindness.

But it made him feel... okay... he supposed, because he had seen enough in his life; too many dead accountable to his name. One step forward, and Sasuke was coming for him, he was sure. He had wanted something different, for his little brother.

But there was little choice anymore, and he supposed that, in one way, he had forfeited any right to say anything anymore to Sasuke. Another step forward, and Itachi waited. Yes, this darkness was his doing.

* * *

4. _Epiphanies -- Battlestar Galatica OST (Bear McCreary)_

It was the way it always was with them.

She would walk into her darkened room, unaware of anything but falling into her bed, and then he would come. Out from that corner that he hid so well inside of, and be all at once in front of her. Grabbing her wrists and holding them behind her back, pulling her close and kissing her till she started shaking. Pulling her forwards onto her bed. Finally letting her go, so that she could shove her fingers into his hair and pull at it just the way he liked.

Kissing and yanking at patches of clothing.

This was always their way.

* * *

5. _Given Up -- Linkin Park_

Her heels dug into the ground as she was flung backwards, dragging up dust like a huge cloud behind her

-- hit the tree

-- spring forward. Hair flying in her face and her breath coming in short angry bursts. The enemy had already created a substitute, hiding from her. Her leg contacted with a wooden log.

"You are too slow, Sakura"

"Itachi! I told you! Stay out of my fights! I'm not Sasuke, and you are not under any obligations to follow me around!"

* * *

6. _Lord of Kobol -- Battlestar Galatica OST (Bear McCreary)_

Her fingers closed around the incense stick.

The Uchiha district was quiet, echoing like the ghost town it was known to be. Dropping her head, she began to mumble words of prayer. Sasuke was waiting for her somewhere outside, but she needed to do this. Sasuke -- her husband now -- perhaps didn't understand, but understood enough to leave well alone on this topic. Sakura's love for his elder brother Itachi had been renowned, and she always went to light incense for it.

Stood swaying in front of the shrine like he was moving with her.

* * *

7. _Most Expensive Girl in the World -- Lou Bega_

If Itachi had been a lesser man, he would have dropped his head against the table and beat it repeatedly against the hardwood. Instead he made a quiet grunt.

"Girl trouble, Itachi-chan?" Shisui dug at him.

"I don't understand it, Cousin, she just doesn't pay attention."

"It's Sakura-san, she cares about three things, Naruto, your brother and her patients."

"Cousin, --"

"You really picked the hardest girl in the village to go after. It's not that she's playing you on purpose, she just is oblivious to it all. Rumour has it that Neji had to kiss her before she even noticed his attentions."

Itachi made that quiet grunt again.

* * *

8. _In Pieces -- Linkin Park_

Being a ninja was the worst job Sakura could think of. Not in a it-drones-on, but in I-don't-want-to-look-at-another-dying-man kind of way. It cut her up -- splintered her at times. She didn't have enough fingers and toes enough to count the lost loved ones anymore.

Didn't have enough days in the calendar for the memories.

It became a reconciliation thing, after Naruto passed, that Sakura age 30, walked the dark streets of Konoha, like Shishou used to drink, she would just walk when things were foggiest to keep those memories, those people alive, smiling in life.

And one day, it just broke and she didn't want to be alone anymore, and he found her.

* * *

9. _Worthy of Survival -- Battlestar Galatica OST (Bear McCreary)_

It's that moment in battle, when the dirt is flying around you at a million miles an hour, and when you look the wrong way to check if someone next to you is still there -- still alive.

Sakura wished she had never turned that way.

It was at that moment that she turned and saw Itachi fall. The great scythe wedged into his stomach, without a moment's hesitation, and with his last strength, he smiled and slashed across his eyes, the blood from his eyes now mixing with what had already splattered there.

Without hesitating, the hand signs that Chiyo had performed came to her mind, and it all went very quiet inside Sakura's mind.

* * *

10. _The River -- Good Chartlotte_

These were fights of lust, because he liked his women vicious, and Sakura, he mused, was as vicious as they came. Grinning as her fist punched through the chest of another man. Grinning because they were trained by her point, that to laugh because crying is no longer an option.

When there was no more around them, he pushed her down, biting and kissing, blood and sweat and heat making them stick together. Her legs wrapping tight around him. His fingers pulling at her jacket. He pauses, taking a break, admiring beauty when it was before him so wanton. He wondered if she knew her fragility. But before he could think too much more, she was pushing him down, bucking her hips into his. This was to be washed away, this is to lose yourself. This is where Itachi found his heart beating harder than it did at any other point.

* * *

afterahardday


	14. Tristes Apprets, ItaSaku, SakuShika

**Title:** Tristes Apprets.  
**Characters/Pairings:** Haruno Sakura, Uchiha Itachi, Nara Shikamaru ( & Temari). ItaSaku, ShikaSaku, ShikaTema  
**Rating:** mature... ish?  
**Summary:** Happy endings are never what it looks like, even if you never wanted one.  
**Notes:** I was doing another song writing meme. Tristes Apprets as featured in the Marie Antoinette soundtrack came up, followed by Avril 14th... and what was only supposed to be a song long just sort of exploded on me. It turned into this thing... a note about marriages, I think. I am the daughter of a broken one, so the perfect marriage is a concept as broken and as far away to me as fairies are to everyone else. Plus the song spoke to me of a moment where Marie Antoinette finally managed to set her marriage at ease with heirs, but all of France and the court hated her. So I wanted to create a moment where we don't get what we wanted, but we... find a variable through a measured amount of tolerance, hope and persistence. I recommend the soundtrack, its amazing, a blend of old world and new. Lastly... I have no idea if thats a law or not. I made it up on the spot. Weirder shit has happened in the history of laws.  
**standard disclaimers apply. **

_ "Words fail me all the time_  
_I don't even feel like talking_  
_still I go on and on_  
_I'm dying here and you keep walking_

_why are you asking me this?_  
_can't you see I'm trying?_  
_I don't like it like this_  
_no, I think I'm dying"_

_I don't like it like this - the radio dept. _

* * *

She refused to look at him, just stared at the ground while he waltzed her around the ballroom. Her fashionably dyed pink hair was done in a simple style, and though it was raised up she was still half a head shorter then him.

"It is not your fault, Lord Uchiha. I tried to tell them no. But, my inheritance aside, I'll never be good enough for you in societies eyes. Not for a Duke."

He said nothing as he spun her again. She looked away. Once more they turned. This had been their dance, always. "I am to marry Nara and there isn't much choice in it. I don't have the blood your family wants."

"Nara would make a fine husband."

It felt like a slap in the face. She hissed out through her teeth. "He might be, but I have nothing to say to him, and he finds my work... troublesome. In fact I don't think he plans to pay the slightest bit of attention to me."

It felt all too much in his arms, so warm and safe, she let him go and took a step back from him, trying to define the distance they would have to enforce for the rest of their lives. She held her tears firmly. "Thank-you Lord Uchiha, I enjoyed the dance very much."

He tried to think of something to say, to stop her as she turned on her heel and with a determined and entirely unladylike movement that he had always loved in her, she went to leave. But he couldn't... couldn't let her be another Sasuke. He struggled to find the words. "Sakura." he said softly. It didn't work.

"Sakura." Louder. Still nothing.

"_Sakura_" he practically shouted, which he never did. Not even when he needed to. This time she stopped, but didn't turn. The rest of the ballroom stopped as well. "Please, Sakura."

Slowly she turned, he saw the way her chest heaved with her effort to keep herself under control. But he couldn't bare to make the same mistake again, he reach forward and grabbed her shoulder, pulling her close and kissed her. There was a gasp from the ballroom. Sakura's tears were warm on his cheek as she allowed herself a second, one warm soft heartbreaking second in her arms before pulling away and slapping him hard. His hand rose incredulous to his face, over the slap mark that was turning a light pink.

"Too little, too late Itachi. I'm married by special license." She pushed him back, her temper swelling. "You and society never understood, I never wanted to be married, I wanted to be a spinster, I wanted to do my charity work and have my own life... though none of that matters any more, as the fools rule the masses and I no longer have any freedom." she drew in a breath, her temper cooling, her eyes softened and she took another step back "Good bye."

She turned and with every bit of dignity she could muster, left the ballroom.

* * *

The carriage was silent on the journey home.

"I'm very sorry Shikamaru, I tried my best. I am afraid I am going to be quiet cold as a wife, though I respect your honour, I'll sire no children that aren't yours."

He caste her a short glance, assessing her for a moment. "Good job on slapping him, I really didn't want to call him out for kissing you, Itachi is a good shot."

Sakura gave a small laugh. "I'll defend my own honour where I can. If I can't well... I'll see to it where it comes."

He nodded then sighed, "This marriage is going to be troublesome."

"I'll make it bearable, I'm quiet cheerful... usually. Though I am afraid I won't enter society much after this. Your house will be organised, and my family gives healthy children. If I have an affair, it'll be discreet. If it ever happens."

Shikamaru's eyebrows rose for a minute, he chuckled and then decided to ignore that particular bit of information. "You are very much in love with Itachi, aren't you?"

She stilled for a moment then,"Yes."

"Why didn't you accept his offer then?"

"Because I didn't want to be married." she gritted her teeth.

"You were being serious?" he didn't seem all the surprised. But then Shikamaru didn't seem all that interested in anything apart from staring at the sky.

"Very. I wanted to do my work, I wanted to be a doctor. I nursed men during the war, though my mother told everyone I was sick and couldn't leave the house. I wanted to keep my money and set up a centre for women to come and get help. But due to my escapade in my youth for the better part of six months, they were insisting I get married. Like I was some unruly child."

"You still can, you know." Nara muttered. "You may not love me but I am not a tyrant... It sounds like a good thing your work... I have no interest in changing you either, don't understand any of this nonsense about reigning a woman in. And as to the other matter, if you are discreet, I will be also."

"You have a lover?"

He paused, assessing once more. "... Yes. Lady Sabuko."

"_Temari_?" Sakura's eyebrows shot up.

"Don't look like that, everybody does when I say so. She is much like yourself, she didn't want to be married and her brothers... didn't force her over it. Gaara is a total recluse, half mad, but he loves his family. She understands I needed an heir though, she respects you in her odd way, and she's promised to stay away till I get said... beastie of a child."

"This is to be a discreet and logical alliance, rather then a marriage?" It could be worse. He could hate her. She could hate him. But she could deal with friendship. There were worse conditions to raise a child in. She lent forward, offering her hand, they swayed as the carriage rocked on the roads.

He looked at her hand, then at her. "Exactly. I am glad you are not a... overly hysterical woman." He shrugged and took her hand.

"No. Not always. Nursing doesn't let you be. I have my moments, such as before. But as along as we have some sort of respect and friendship, I am well and truly prepared to work at this."

Shikamaru gave a small one-sided smile, Sakura smiled back.

"One last thing, as you can tell, I won't actually need any of your money. I have quiet a large amount, so you can keep your dowry. But I'll advise you in investment of it, that is all. I know you have no knack for it."

Sakura thought for a moment. "You're right... I occasionally gamble. A habit I learnt in the nursing tents I am afraid. Never very much, mind you. Except when I am particularly upset. But if you teach me, I shall learn quick enough."

"True enough. Try never get a debt larger then a thousand pounds, amounts larger then that take more time to recoup." he sounded as bored as ever.

Sakura thought for a moment about what he said, how he said it and this whole discussion, the ballroom and Itachi. And very slowly her smile spread, wider again and she began to giggle, then laugh completely. Shikamaru leaned back in the carriage and went to look out the window with a small smile on his face.

* * *

Sakura's young son looked nothing like her, neither did his elder brother, who was currently away on a trip with his father. But currently the young son was running in the garden of the Nara estates. Sakura herself was sitting on a picnic blanket, smearing a creamy french cheese on a cracker. She watched her child carefully, hawk like even as she enjoyed herself in the early spring sun.

Beside her sat Itachi. He wasn't watching the boy, he didn't care for it at all. It wasn't his child. Though he'd grieve for Sakura if anything had happened, as he had when she lost her first child. She had risen remarkably well to the roll of being a mother. He couldn't grudge Nara however, the man was quiet amiable, just as he had guessed. The only man that could take this whole ordeal without a bat of an eyelid. But then, he was going to visit Temari in Italy, and had said that Itachi could stay for awhile, so everything worked out well. It killed Itachi, to watch her fuss of the brown hair and eyed child that had just enough Sakura in him that they ran around instead of just laying down and staring. It should of been a black hair child that would demand of his mother and father as surely as they demanded of each other.

Sakura however had been quiet firm about his stay. She was pregnant again, and until the child was born she wouldn't take a man to her bed, husband or otherwise. He was to stay in separate rooms as well. Though society would never believe that, if they knew. But then, there were lots of things society never knew. That her friendship with Nara had been fulfilling, and though they never loved one another as anything but old friends, they were skilled enough with each other that despite the lack of stronger passions, they had lighter ones instead, and all attempts to get a child were made with a great deal of laughter and a considerable amount of champagne. That Itachi only ever danced the waltz with her in private anymore. That usually it led to her being kissed thoroughly till her whole body shook. Then they would both be left cold because their duty and their roles was... firm like that.

But, she had said, eyes mischievous. This would be her last child, Shikamaru had promised. Three was enough. He would stop coming to her bed chamber after this, then he was probably going to spend more time in Italy, he had said and just like their marriage had started, they sorted out the details then and there. After the youngest was born and reached the age of 12, it would go with Shikamaru, just like the other two. He had bought her a house in town, and told her to come to him if she ever needed investment assistance, but as far as he was concerned, she was free of him, and she could consider herself unmarried in all but the eyes of the law. They signed their signatures and the deal was struck. She gave him a kiss on the cheek and told him the next child was going to be a girl, and that Temari had better make she was just as feisty as their father deserved. But she was Countess Nara, and as such, the doors would always be open, out of friendship more then duty.

The rules they had laid down on their carriage ride that night had lasted them the last 12 years. Sakura herself had never taken a lover beyond the odd heated session with Itachi, and when Temari was in town, their liaisons were always so low key most people had no idea what was happening. Sakura never gambled more then a thousand pounds and she learnt the basics of investment schemes from Shikamaru. She was finally independent like she had longed to be, just 12 years later then she had hoped.

Itachi gently put his hand on Sakura's waist, feeling her warmth through the layers of skirts that she sat ruffled in. She turned him gave him a very small smile. He just pulled her closer.

It wasn't the fairy tale ending. But Sakura never wanted that anyway.

* * *

_(and because I just couldn't resist)_

The three Nara children looked at their half brother over the grave, the coffin of Sakura Haruno being lowered down slowly. They assessed each other like both their fathers had taught them. Calculating where they stood, their weakness and strength.

All they had in common was a memory of something that that neither of them understood. They moved away from the grave slowly as the crowd dispersed like a black cloud after a storm.

It was the daughter that broke the barrier first. "Tell us about her."

The young Uchiha - the Uchiha _Bastard_, that is going to _inherit_, as everyone whispered - thought very hard for a moment.

"She liked to dance."

They fell into step as they walked away. Their fathers watched them.

"You know, I am sure there was a much easier way for an alliance to be formed then this business, Itachi." Shikamaru murmured.

"I'd hardly call it a alliance, I am in your debt for finding that loophole so that my son could inherit the title."

He shrugged. "You had a common law marriage that you both lived together as partner's for a long time, and once I testified that I hadn't taken my... husbandly rights... with her for a very long time... and we'd formally agreed upon things to be separate, it really wasn't much of a big deal. She loved you very much, she'd want this."

"How is Duchess Temari?"

"Annoyed, she says that if she'd known Sakura gave such good stock, she'd of forced the girl to marry Gaara, and she'd never had to have taken the title herself until one of Kankuro's brats get old enough."

Itachi permitted a small smile, then struggled to find the words that he was loathe to speak, but had to anyway... some things were just duty. "She said you made her laugh,"

"She'd laugh _at _me, if thats what you mean. Said I deserved having a nag for a wife, and she wouldn't be such a damn nag if I was slightly less lazy. She'd always organize my notes for me. She learnt to forge me signature at one point, to get the paper work out of the way of the house faster. Just be lucky you only had to go through one pregnancy with her. I went through two and quarter. The woman was a tyrant."

Itachi nodded, amusement glittering in his eyes. "That would be just like her... and I am truly lucky on that account... Shall we head inside, there is a chill coming up."

Shikamaru nodded and they headed for the manor house. 


	15. X GaaSaku

**Title:** X  
**Characters:** Gaara, Sakura  
**Pairing:** GaaSaku  
**Rating:** M  
**Summary:** Ten different genre's for GaaSaku, of many many flavors.  
**Notes:** Lololol, some of these are ridiculiously long. Also, damn. Porn.

* * *

**Angst:**

She slammed her head against the wall of the shower, she'd just turned the water on. Ice cold and burning on her skin. She was going numb (good, good), she couldn't even tell if she was crying anymore. Why, kami? Why now? When she was just... just starting... the blood trickled off her skin out of her clothes that she hadn't bothered to change out of, down into the drain.

The door slammed open, there Gaara was there, he took one look at her miserable self, sneered in anger and dragged her out, rough hands pulling at her clothes.

"He's dead." she whimpered. "Naruto's dead."

"I know." Gaara said softly, the anger of his actions not in his voice.

"It's my fault, I wasn't..."

"It's too late."

"There's no one left."

"I am." He kissed her, and she relished in his warmth. He shuddered at her cold.

* * *

**AU: **

He watched her, she was pretending as she looked out the black limos window that she didn't know.

"Who was he?"

"No one."

"I hired _you from the escort service. I punched him for __you. Ruined a perfectly decent business deal for __you. So you tell me."_

She turns back, eyes flat, almost angry, that fake little smile isn't on her mouth. "He's no one, a ex-employer. We didn't get along."

"Don't play vapid with me."

She sighed, and that fake smile was back. She stretched out, and he couldn't help but watch. The dress was black silk and it fell about her body so well, smooth shoulders exposed and he wanted to bite her. She watched him watch her and it must of shown on his face. "See? I don't have to tell you anything. You're just an employer. We're going to fuck, you'll scream out someone else's name and I'll dutifully say yours. You'll give me a tip, I'll give you my panties. I keep the job and you buy someone else for that guy you punched and everything moves forward and forgets about this."

She lent forward, her perfect manicured nails digging into his thigh, far too high, then loosened, running little circles with a nail. He caught her wrist, gripping her hard, pulling her forward.

"You're right about one thing, I am going to fuck you."

The smile on her face took a harder edge then.

"You're going to enjoy it, there will be no duty involved when you say my name."

The intensity of his eyes made her breath hitch, and he leant forward, she didn't, but she didn't pull away either. They were matched heights.

"But you are going to tell me who he is and why he made you cry like that."

She snatched her hand back, though she knew it was from his discretion, not her strength. Her eyes were cold again, Gaara decided he liked it better when they were getting cloudy with lust. She turned around and hit on the plastic board between driver and the back of the car, it scrolled down and told him to let her out at the next corner.

"But you don't know where you are." Gaara said.

"Phone maps, GPS and cabs are wonderful inventions, Gaara." she shot back.

* * *

**Crack:**

... So she was straddling the Kazekage. Again.

And he was asking her to do... that. Again.

"You are really lucky, Gaara, that we are the same skin tone, or you'd never find a girl discreet enough to do this."

"Hn."

"Why do you want to cover it up so bad?"

"Curious."

"Gaara, I am not wasting my Napoleon _freakin' Purdis concealer for your 'curiosity'."_

"I'll buy you more."

"I don't see why you want to, it makes you look weird. You don't have any eyebrows, but thats okay cause of the black and your scar, actually Ino reckons you'd look weird WITH eyebrows. Like your face would look too crowded. So its fine, if you're worried about that." She smeared more concealer around his eyes. It was like face painting at the academy, and next time, she'd bring some war paint or something, because hers just wasn't doing the job.

"... I just want to see what I'd be like... if I wasn't." If his eyes had been open, he would of shot her his most pathetic little boy lost look, she knew it...

She softened. Goddamn his vulnerable act."... You better buy me a years worth for this." No longer able to say angry, she smoothed it out. Most of it was hidden. She got off his lap, sitting on his desk instead, picking up the hand held mirror and told him to open his eyes.

He stared at his face with a rapt curiosity. The scar could never be hidden, but she could fade it a little, and his eyes just looked a little sallow and sunken, like he'd had a black eye weeks ago. He looked... She felt her heart clench and... damnit. She couldn't tell him no if she tried.

"It's different..." She murmured.

'_But...?' _hung in the air.

"... Its not the man I fell in love with." She bit her lip and lent forward and kissed him. She looked up, not seeing the black she was familiar with. "Okay seriously, curiosity is satisfied, you are taking this off. I want my grumpy raccoon back, not someone that is almost as pretty as Sasuke-kun, else I am going to start feeling really insecure."

* * *

**Crossover: **_(Bartimaeus trilogy meets Naruto)_

The smoke from the summoning cleared and Sakura coughed hard. But she wasn't scared. She was staying put within her circle, just like the book said. Step out and the demon would get her. There was a rustle, and sand churned in the opposite circle, it teemed up, forming a figure that opened its eyes slowly.

"What, mortal? Why have you disturbed me?"

Sakura cleared her throat. It's chosen form was... hypnotic, black rings around pupil-less bright green eyes. She leaned forward and it smirked.

"I feel it only fair that I warn you, one step more, and I'll tell you exactly what your soul tastes like as I devour it piece by careful piece."

Sakura jerked back. The demon chuckled.

"I've summoned you, Gaara of the Desert, because..."

"...because?"

"... I just wanted to ask you a question."

He stared, incredulous, then he looked angry. "Do. Not. Play. Games. With. Me." The shadows around him seem to lengthen and his face took on a totally different depth, burning from those green eyes out. The sand that was his trade mark swirled.

"No! I just want to know where you buried Nefertiti's anklet!" She protested.

He stared at her. Then laughed. "You should know I can't say it. I was forbidden to do so. If you ask me, my essence will be split in two."

"Nooo, I wasn't going to. I just..."

"You just..."

"Look, you guys are really finicky about your instructions, right - "

" - as if we don't have good reason, mortal - "

" - so you don't have to say anything. You can draw me a map! Or write it down... or hell, you could sing it. That wouldn't be "speaking" If the book was right, it said you were forbidden to ever 'speak' of its resting place."

"... Sing it?"

"It was just a suggestion."

"So why don't you command me, then?"

"... Because I thought I'd talk about it first."

"You're..." he shook his head. "Alright, I'll do it."

A bright smile lit her face. "You do that, then I'll release you! I won't summon you again unless I get lost. Shishou is going to be _so _proud!"

"Hrn." How annoying... But he figured it was already too late, he had a feeling his new master was going to get lost a lot. .. It didn't bother him as much as he thought it might of. He retrieved a writing book from her beside table of the small room that he'd been summoned, and started drawing Australia.

* * *

**First Time:**

He was shaking as he reached for her. He didn't even know he could shake this much. Her skin was soft and he wasn't used to it, without his sand shield, her softness against his skin, it was far too much.

"I can't," he hissed.

She gave a soft little comforting purr and guided his hand back to her hip, bracing it over his, not even wincing when he nearly drew blood and most definitely bruised skin. She was naked before him, and he still somehow had his pants on as he sat on the couch. She didn't press him, but made encouraging little noises as his other hand came up to the other side of her hip, tugging her closer, half scared of her, of how much he wanted her. They'd reached this point before, and Sakura had infinite patience with him every time he pushed her away, sometimes violently, sometimes quietly.

But now, from where he was sitting and she was standing, he pressed his mouth to the hip bone that jutted out, running teeth and lips over it, his fingers spreading, running over her rear and down the back of her thigh, he felt like something was different. She gave little breathy sighs, the knee he'd touched buckling and landing next to him, bring her that much closer. He could smell her, her lust, the excited apprehension on her skin, he bit down on her side and he felt her body shudder and the lust scent spiked.

He couldn't stop himself this time, he didn't know how he got this far in, but he couldn't seem to pull himself back. He went to his pants, undoing the button and fly pushing them down along with his boxers, pulling himself free. Sakura hissed in breath, her eyes not meeting his, but still very much on him.

"Please Gaara... are you sure...?"

He nodded and he pulled her insistently now. She groaned at it, the bites he was plating over her stomach, hips and thighs, everywhere he could reach. Slowly, gingerly, like a cat, she straddled him, he could feel her heat as she came closer. She spat into her hand, then ran it over his erection, getting him slick and ready. He groaned and closed his eyes as she worked. But she stopped soon and her hand was replaced with something infinitely better. But now she was the one sighing, her head going back as she sank down - down - down -

They both sighed at the others feel. Gaara grabbed her by the nape of her neck and pulled her down for a kiss that was more about teeth and tongues then a kiss. She gave a tentative rock of her hips, and they both moaned. Gaara couldn't breath, couldn't think, because she was just so warm and tight and wet and it was all for him, around him... he mumbled the words into her skin, pulling at her hips, making her rock again, sliding and rubbing over her thighs and Sakura got the hint.

She wouldn't speed up, though he tried to make her, growling into her neck, trying to tell her to hurry up, because he needed...

Till he realised she wasn't looking at him. He turned to the side, and saw the decorative mirror that had been installed. Their naked bodies were splayed out in hundreds of sections, and he was right, it was surely too much, because he could see how her body welcomed him in, see the skin on her back - where he'd just raked his nail down - covered in little red lines. He growled again, louder, adding to it by fisting his hand in her hair, yanking down hard. She hissed and her neck was exposed to him, and he was really too far gone now, because she finally was going fast enough.

And it was so much better watching their bodies movements in those mirror pieces now, because their skin was becoming sweat slick and she was crying for him in earnest now, not the quiet little sounds of before, but sobs of pleasure, his fingers reaching between her legs and found that little button that Kankurou said was... was...

...was _something _because she suddenly snapped her hips forward, eyes wide in surprise and he could feel the shudders from inside her, but she was clinging to him, nails in his back, face pressed into his neck, begging him, somewhere between harsh and angry and like a child that just couldn't... couldn't... he couldn't keep this up any longer... it was too much of... everything he was scared of... because he didn't want to control himself, and all the sick words he's echoed from Shukaku-long-since-gone were in his head. ___I want you, I want to rip you up, apart, because the softness, I know you'll be that much softer on the inside, so warm and wet... and it'll be so much sweeter._

He pushed her side ways on the couch, needing to be on top of her, to control their bodies, she made a little yelp as she couldn't get a good enough grip on him, twisted as she was, caught and trapped by him... her moans had taken on a different sound again, just desperate now. There were no words, just begging something from him, he reached for that point on her again, the one that made her beg so much already. He brought his hips up sharper, faster, and it was probably too rough, too much like he promised he wouldn't, but she didn't seem to be complaining.

In fact she seemed to be screaming and he clamped his mouth on her that was nothing like a kiss, shutting her up, because it sounded like one of his victims, and in that painful moment where the sounds of pleasure and pain blended together as he swallowed all her cries, something in his body could no longer take this pressure of her holding him in so tight and he broke apart with a snarl and a bite into her jaw that broke skin, the blood he tasted was sweet and it choked him.

But she soothed him through it, even though her hands were shaking just as badly, wiggling her body to get comfortable, but other then that, not moving. He pried himself up on his elbows, allowing her to breath. She was flushed and perfect, her blood smeared with sweat and drying, hair around her in a mess. She was whispering sweet nothings to him, moving her legs to accommodate him differently, but still not pushing him away, instead pulling him for a kiss that was all soft and coaxing. Satisfied. Well, if that warm heat he was still inside of was anything to go by, she'd enjoyed this as much as he had.

Gaara sighed and pressed his face into her neck, her hands coming to his hair... well, at least Naruto and Kankurou couldn't hold his 'virgin' status over his head anymore. Though, if this whole thing was to be read properly, someone had had their way with the precious 'Sakura-chan' sometime ago. He chuckled and moved them to both lay comfortably, contemplating doing the jealous lover thing later, when he could be bothered. Right now, he was figuring out how long till he could do this again.

* * *

**Fluff:**

She gave him lazy kisses after her shifts at the hospital, like she was thankful and felt like taking the time in the world. He'd never tell her, but they were his favorites, because though there was never much left, there was still a faint tingle of chakra on her skin that made his hair stand up on end in the best way... later he'd contemplate getting her to use that on other sensitive places, but not when she was tired. She needed to eat, then he'd have to shove her into the shower, because she smelt like burnt hair, antiseptic and blood. It didn't bother him, but it did bother her. After that, they'd end up on the couch, and she'd curl on him, it'd be relaxing, he'd put his head in her lap, then sometime later they'd move and the kisses would start, no more hurried then before, just moments of affection pressed against his skin. She'd unravel around him like a snake, easing her way up his body, covering him. Sometimes it would turn into languid sex, depending how bad his or her work had been that day. Often times, it turned into him holding her while she slept, then if she didn't wake up, he'd pick her up and put her to bed.

It wasn't much, but it was what they both had wanted since they were children, a warmed comfort to sleep, meditate and smile over.

* * *

**Humor:**

Sakura had a weakness. It was not a common known fact. Gaara had seen her when everything _about_ her had been a weakness, then watched her mourn someone that had lent her and him incredible strength, but this one was just weird. But he was beginning to learn that Sakura was a rather strangely dimensioned person. He wasn't sure if this was a facet he liked.

This one was more troublesome. This one manifested in the form of the kittens. Four tiny, mangy, mongrel kittens. They mewed at him, gold eyes blinking up.

"I know its not very shinobi of me, but these mean obaa-san was just going to suffocate them, said she couldn't look after them," there were tears in her eyes "and I just couldn't." She was right, most ninja would of just turned an eye away, no one really cared about some common house cats, sometimes they ended up food.

She picked up one of them out of the box. A ginger one, male, the biggest of the litter, it had a black splotch over its face. Judging by its paws and tails, it was going to be a big cat. It apparently was fond of Sakura, its savior, because it reached out one paw, claws catching her shirt lightly. She clucked and cradled it close, it proceeded to worm its way up, nuzzle into her neck, then take up a place on her shoulder, like the damned thing belonged there.

Score one to the kitten, little bastard. Wait why was he getting jealous of a kitten? The kitten mewled, its littler mates mewled back, Sakura giggled and leaned down, petting them all. King Tom on her shoulder claiming rights above all.

"But Gaara, listen, I know this isn't really the done thing, I've got to go to the hospital, and I can't take a pet in there, obviously, these aren't clean like nin-dogs and cats. I got rid of their fleas, so don't worry about that though! But d'you think I could leave these here till the shift is over?"

"Hrn."

"Thank-you so much Gaara!" She lent forward over the desk, kissing his forehead, he tried not to stare at the view straight down Sakura's top, that was zipped down a little in the heat.

... Okay, so maybe the kittens weren't so bad. They got him... yeah. Yeah, okay maybe he was just going to scowl into his papers until his raging hormones were not quiet so raging. Tch, if only.

She deposited King Tom on his desk. "Just get them some water, I've already fed them." She went to the door and gave him a little wave good bye.

King Tom mewled, challenging Gaara. He stared the kitten down. The other three were trying to get out of their box, if the scratching was to go by. The kitten stared back.

They had an agreement.

* * *

**Hurt/Comfort:**

The smell of death clung to her, where she sat, fingers dug into dirt. The dead bodies around her were enough to make sense of the smell, and only so much of the vacant look in her eyes as she rocked with grief, mumbling to herself. Naruto approached her, but without looking, she sent him into a tree with a push of her hand. It was clear that her mind was past reason and that some other way was to be taken to get close to her, that something else had taken hold of her mind.

So Gaara was sent in, restrained her as gently as possible, and they all flinched as she snarled and wreathed in his sandy claws, sending clouds of it flying with chakra ladened hits as the cries turned to screams of terror. But finally, finally, he held her still and came close enough to see... see that at least part of her mind was kept in a gen-jutsu, that when he released it, had forced her to watch her team mates die over and over again. Too strong for her to break she'd taken the only action left to her, unseeing violence, until he released her from it. Then she clung, her face pressed to his chest, as she screamed and cried her grief.

He raised a hand to her hair, like he'd watched Temari do. He quietly promised that he'd find who'd done this to one of Naruto's precious people, and make them pay.

* * *

**Smut:**

"... but mostly they are worried about the grain supply from Mist." Temari was here for a monthly report, political stuff that wasn't really a duty that was paid for, but a duty to her brother, that she reported what the people were thinking and feeling about their leader.

Normally Gaara's attention was intense. But today, Gaara seemed... distracted.

Well then maybe the council had been too much this morning, because his brow was furrowed, his fingers were white where he clenched his pen like he was concentrating extra hard on something. Or trying not to. She couldn't really tell. He grunted in reply, not totally unheard of, but his eyes looked... and with that she quickly rapped up the report, knowing that he'd work out whatever it was by himself.

As soon as she was gone, Gaara pushed his chair back, allowing him to see Sakura, a look of mischief on her face as she ran her tongue over her fingers, totally pleased with herself... considering what she'd just been doing, had just made him endure... He growled and pulled her out and up.

"Never do that again" He grunted.

Sakura pouted. "Why? You seemed to be enjoying it not so long ago, if the ways your legs were shaking, and the way you just ca-"

She doesn't get to finish, because he's pinned her to the desk with his sand and is in the process of pulling those ridiculous little black shorts down before she really gets to realise what happened. "Lets see you not make any noise." he bites her collar bone for good measure.

Then his head is between her thighs. Sakura can't figure out if this is the best or worst punishment she's ever received.

* * *

**UST:**

It was the way she punched, that caught his breath with its beauty, made him look for a second. How the punch went straight through her enemies chest, till her hand came out the other side in a splatter. Then he'd rise up beside her and take care of the next enemy, in a flawless dance, rising over each other for kill after kill.


End file.
